Kim Pine's Precious Little Knives
by Jessica-X
Summary: Misanthrope though she may be, Kim Pine's no different from anyone else: she gets lonely. Wants companionship. Problem is, she's been burned enough that she hates everything and everyone too much to seek it out anymore. All she needs is for a former high schooler from her past to drop back in and hit her with a few surprises — and unearth a few of her own. [EnEssEffDubya a little]
1. Chapter 1

**Kim Pine's  
PRECIOUS LITTLE KNIVES  
**

An Ill-Advised Scott Pilgrim Fanfic  
By Jessica X

* * *

NOTICE: Scott Pilgrim and related characters are ©Bryan Lee O'Malley. Story/plot content is © me!

Based mostly off the graphic novels but some stuff from the movie and game. There are other Kim/Knives fics but I haven't read them; I wanted to come at this completely based on the source material. Any similarities to those fics is purely coincidental.

Rated M for adult topics (including one brief not-quite-explicit flashback with a 17-year-old), and some sexual content in later chapters. You know, the L word. No, not "lesbian" — the OTHER L word: _lesbians_.

"... It's something else" - flyafar

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

And so, as our band of ragtag heroes exited from the Chaos Theater, Scott Pilgrim was reunited with his great love - well, other than himself. He and Ramona Flowers, the random American rollerblading groupie, went prancing off into Subspace together. Happily fucking ever after.

Both "fucking happily" and "happily fucking", to be honest.

What did I get? The same thing as usual. _Nothing_. Bitterness and emptiness. Well, I guess that's not completely accurate: Scott said he was sorry. Too little, too late, but hey… at least he tried. A for Effort. He gets Ramona, Stephen gets my old roommate, Wallace gets just about every piece of hot gay ass in Toronto besides Joseph and Stephen. Knives and Young Neil get each other, sort of, kind of. I guess. Who cares? And I'm left with a big bag of nothing.

I'm not Scott, obviously. I'm Kim. I play drums. That's all the introduction you get.

Fine, I'll be nice. You came here for this story, so I'll tell you the rest of the history first. Kim _Pine._ Red hair and freckles, pointless existence. Born and raised in Ontario, though I've skipped from town to town. Scorpio. My turn-ons are death and destruction, and long walks on the beach.

If you don't know _any_ of the history, then you're probably better off. It's a long, sad story full of sighs and facepalms. But some of you probably have that morbid curiosity you can't shake, so unless you already know this and can skip it, or just care even less than me, here we go: I used to play drums for Sex Bob-omb with Scott and Stephen. Also of importance is the fact that Scott left a string of broken hearts in his wake a kilometer and a half long, with mine thrown in there somewhere. Just because he and I patched it up enough to be civil didn't mean we were "all good", but I sure as fuck wasn't going to be the one to explain it to the manchild. Anyway, we all thought for sure that Knives and Ramona were just going to be his latest casualties, or one of them would Yoko him into quitting the band. And we were right about that last part; the band fell apart, but at least not in a literal sense like The Clash At Demonhead, when their bassist was headbutted into coins and the drummer lost her cybernetic arm before disappearing completely. Not too long after the big showdown with Gideon at the Chaos, Ramona and Scott poofed into the ether and haven't been heard from since.

There, happy?

Anyway, this takes place a year after all that went down.

~ o ~

I don't even know why I was still in Toronto. After Sex Bob-omb exploded and Shatter Band shattered, there really wasn't much else for me to do. Boredom, maybe. At least Stephen was still around, making music with his boyfriend, but they didn't seem to need my drums anymore. Dynamite Headdy sounds better without me. Sure, there are days I still miss Sex Bob-omb. Not so much Shatter Band, which stank on ice. But the Bob-omb had potential, we just had Scott's lack of focus holding us back, and Stephen's too-much-focus sucking all the fun out of everything. So maybe, over the course of this paragraph, I talked myself out of missing either of those bands.

Anyway. Toronto, Delicious Cup.

Nobody wants to hear a drummer all by themselves. So I started doing this _thing_ with Steph Nordegraf after she moved back to Toronto. Stephen introduced us; I'd met her through her brother Neil before though. It's… experimental and stupid, and I hate it. I'm on bongos while she sings and plays the zither. We sound like new age music being recorded by kindergartner, which is why we couldn't book any _real_ coffee houses, like Second Cup or Aroma; only knockoffs like that one.

That's what we were doing in Delicious Cup the day my life stopped being pointless and colourless. So colourless that I didn't even fully realise it was summer until I saw Knives Chau walk in.

"What are you doing?" Steph hissed at me. Didn't even notice my bongos were on the floor until that point.

"What?"

"You went totally dead, like some kind of locust."

"Do locusts go dead? Is that their thing?"

"Just…" She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We'll take five."

Frowning up at her, I slipped my bongos into the backpack I normally kept them in. "Chill, Nordegraf. You're going to develop kidney stones."

Okay, so that wasn't really her fault; I was being my usual salty self to cover for the fact that I fucked up our set. Not that anyone in the coffee house was paying the slightest attention to the two weirdos who thought they were musicians; they were all chatting, drinking, and reading through magazines. When one of our ten-minute epics ended, one polite older woman clapped. That was it. We might as well have been ghosts for all the notice we got coming and going.

As I ditched her with the equipment and went up to the counter, slipping in behind Knives in line, I tried not to think too much. Sure, we had a thing once… it's barely worth mentioning. But yeah, it was oddly nice to see a familiar face. Especially with Scott and Ramona off in the ether somewhere.

She looked good. At least, I thought so; she stopped doing that thing where she dyed part of her hair, which I always thought was just a way to compete for Pilgrim's attention, anyway. And a year of college really seemed to have given her something… not that I could tell what it was, but something _more._ Her adorable face was turned mostly away from me, so I couldn't tell much else. Just that she was wearing clothes a little more grown up than when I last saw her, and that she didn't seem as nervously-excited. That's a good thing: I _hate_ excitable people.

"Green milktea?" she asked when she got up to the counter.

"What… is that?" Julie asked her. "This is a coffee house, not a tea house." Typical Julie. Yeah, I knew the barista, but we don't really talk. She's even more unpleasant than I am.

"Oh… but you have green tea and chai tea on the menu. Right there."

Julie didn't even bother to look over her shoulder. "I think I would know the menu better than you would."

"But I'm serious, it's right-"

"Do you have a problem with the way this business operates? Are you blind or something?"

"No, I'm not blind," Knives said, slowly sounding a little less sure of herself. "My eyes work fine."

"Then why can't you read my lips? _No. Milk. Tea."_

This was going nowhere. Even though this wasn't how I wanted to reinitiate contact with either of them again, I strode up to the counter and stood next to Knives.

"If you have milk, and you have tea, you can make her fucking milktea. Besides, you know her, so stop being such a rotting tampon."

"What?" Knives breathed, taking an instinctive step away — probably just from my tone.

"Excuse me, carrot top?" Julie snapped. "You don't tell me how to-"

"And you don't _own_ this café, Powers, even if you do seem to work in all of them. Just make the drink. I'll cover whatever extra you want to charge." Digging into my pocket for my meager amount of money that I own, I produced a couple of toonies. "Make it. Now."

"This isn't even enough for a normal cappuccino, or whatever a 'milktea' is supposed to be."

"She can pay for the actual tea herself; I'm just paying for your added mental energy, which you seem to be rationing very carefully due to a tremendous shortage."

By that point, Julie's glasses were literally steaming. Either from her face heating up with rage, or the coffee machines behind her. Knives had been shrinking away from the whole confrontation, but then she blinked a few times, leaning back toward us.

"Kim?"

My cheeks probably would have turned red at the way she breathed my name. What a dumb reaction. But I made myself focus on what I was doing, stepping forward to add another fiver atop the coins on the counter. "And this is for my espresso. Hurry it the fuck up or I'll do that ask-to-see-a-manager thing we all hate." My work done, I turned and went back over to Steph.

It only took her a minute or so to see that I was back without any drinks. "What happened to my soy latte?"

"Sorry…" All at once, I realised I forgot about that. Or about waiting around for my own drink, either. But she noticed I was out of sorts.

"What happened?"

"To what, your face? I've been wondering that for years."

"No, at the counter." She was used to my attitude by now, and could tell when I was deflecting. A skill I loathe in my friends, because it bypasses my defenses. "You look all shook up."

"Thanks, Elvis." Clearly, she wasn't going to let this go. "Okay… I ran into somebody. From the old days."

Her lip curled slightly. "From the Pilgrim Era, or like even earlier?" My face must have said it all because she winced. "Yikes…"

"I don't care," I told her flatly. "This doesn't matter. Tomorrow, I'm going to wake up and go back to No-Account, punch the clock, and stare into space for six hours until Comeau gets in. Probably drink a bunch of Coke and feel myself contracting diabetes."

"Why don't you just drink Coke Zero?"

My scowl said enough. Still, for good measure, I snapped, " _Never…_ mention Coke Zero… in front of me."

"Okay, Hagrid," she snorted as she finished packing up and we headed for the door. Again, she doesn't respect my grumpiness properly. "But I hope you know this isn't the end of thi-"

Before we could escape Delicious Cup, a pair of crossed blades were blocking our path. Behind their gleaming steel was a pair of dark eyes, blazing with intensity.

"I can't let you leave."

 _To Be Continued…_

* * *

[9/27/2017 - EDITED THIS CHAPTER TO IMPROVE THE FIRST BIT]

FURTHER NOTES: I know this one kind of comes from nowhere, but I've actually been wanting to do something in the Pilgrimverse for a long time. Ever since I first saw the movie in theaters. Then a couple of weeks back, I was playing through the game again out of boredom (trying to get some elusive achievements) and I just felt this strong impulse to give Kim and Knives the ending they deserved.

If you haven't read the comics but HAVE seen the movie, I wouldn't be surprised if you view this as a crackship. It still kind of is in the comics to be honest! But don't worry, you don't have to read them to enjoy this fic; I'll cover what happened in later chapters. Plus a lot of little surprises that make up my take on them.

Hope you like this one! It's about medium-length for me, definitely no oneshot but in total it's not even as long as "Bind Us" is so far. And it's only getting started!

Jessex


	2. Chapter 2

NOTES: Boy this is a short chapter. I promise they wont all be this tiny! Also, how am I doing so far? This is my first attempt in this fandom so I'm just basically crossing my fingers that I don't ruin everything. But there's a lot of fun ahead!

* * *

CHAPTER TWO

"Wh-what? Knives, what are you doing?"

"Not letting you leave," she said again, adorable little face almost collapsing in on itself when I questioned her. "I… was that not clear?"

Rolling my eyes, I went on, "Yeah, but _why?_ And why are you threatening to disembowel me?"

"Oh…" After a second or two, she lowered the blades. "Sorry, just a reflex. But I didn't want you to go yet! I… I wanted to say…" Her movements were more and more squirmy as she sheathed her daggers somewhere behind her back, I guess. No idea. "Thanks."

"And nothing says 'thank you' like a near-assault?"

"I _said_ I was sorry!"

Steph looked between us. "So… can I like… go?" When I nodded, Steph slipped around Knives and out the door.

"Alright," I sighed, moving to follow her — and again, a knife came up to block my path. "HEY!"

"Sorry!" she squeaked again, ducking her head. "I'll try to stop that, I just…"

Giving up on being able to leave the café anytime soon, I gestured to one of the tables in the corner. "Can I at least sit down if I can't go home?" When she nodded, I led her over to it. She followed like an obedient puppy, either because she was still starstruck from the Sex Bob-omb days — for reasons I will _never_ understand — or because she felt bad for continuing to accidentally threaten my life.

"So…" She waited as I set down my backpack on the table. "You wanted to do more than just say 'thank you,' I'm guessing. Want to find out how Scott's doing? Don't know, don't want to know."

A little shrug of her shoulder as she tapped her blue-painted fingernails against the tabletop, looking a little glum, and a lot nervous. "Um, I did want to ask, but that wasn't, like… the only reason. Just miss you guys. Everybody from Sex Bob-omb, not just Scott, or you. Like, how's Stephen Stills doing? Or Young Neil?"

"It's just 'Neil' now. And you should know better than I do."

"Nope."

"What?"

"We broke up. Like… I don't know, don't worry about that. He just stopped being interesting. Is that okay to say?"

I rolled one hand to show her I didn't mind. "He always kind of… liked living in Steph's shadow. Was easier for him to just keep playing Zelda and ignoring life's bigger concerns. You could have asked her just now."

"Oh? That was her? I never met his sister…"

"You never m-" But I shook my head to clear away the unnecessary question; she had been out of town in those days, after all. "Well, now you have."

"Yeah."

The table went quiet for a few seconds. It was just beginning to get tense and stale, and I thought I could actually feel every single eye in the coffee shop glaring at us when Julie's grating voice rang out, "Fucking tea and fucking espresso for the fucking carrot-head."

Before I could lift a finger, Knives had backflipped out of her chair and sped past the counter, leaving Julie's glasses on the barista next to her and her hair swept entirely to one side as she settled back into her seat, sliding my espresso across the table to me.

"Uh… here you go."

"Anyway," I said, clearing my throat before taking a long drink.

"Kim? Do you ever think about life?"

"Well, it's been real, but I want to get a head start on sleep," I announced, trying to get up from the table. To escape _that_ promising conversation.

"It's like… eight PM. And you're drinking espresso."

"Caffeine makes me tired."

"Then stop drinking it."

"Maybe I _like_ being tired?" But that was just about the flimsiest excuse I ever tried on anyone, so I didn't even wait for her to fully raise her eyebrows before I sighed. "Fine, fine. You were saying? Life?"

"I can go…"

But she sounded so pathetic and wounded that I couldn't bring myself to move in for the kill. "I can finish my coffee with you. It's not a big deal."

"Okay." Taking a deep breath, her head tilted to one side, letting raven locks swish in front of her eyes. "Life. Like, um… how crazy it is that I even met you guys, and dated Scott, and then we both ended up fighting Gideon to free Ramona. Like, my dad training me so hard, I figured he was just being overprotective? But I guess there really are threats out in the universe that we need to guard against."

"Pretty sure Scott was the real threat," I tried to joke.

"You wanna start a band? With Neil's sister?"

"Can you even play?" When she wilted, I felt bad, but it was a valid question.

"No… maybe the triangle?"

My glare said it all. When she went back to drinking her milktea, I said, "Look. Shit went down and we all went 'poom', and I don't think there's any real reason to keep digging up skeletons. You don't really want to hang out with me, you're just feeling nostalgic. So thanks, but no thanks."

"But I do! I mean… it's both, not just the nostalgia. Promise!"

"Really? What do you even know about me?"

"I know your name is Kim, and… you play the drums."

"Great. Score one for Team China."

"Team Canada. I'm Canadian, I was born here…"

That made me wince for once. "Right. That was stupid of me to say, sorry. I just don't get why you'd want to hang out with me when all you know is that I'm a percussionist and an asshole."

"You are not," she said with a smile too sweet for this conversation. "Can I say something that might be kind of… not fun?"

"Go for it. Everything that's happened to me today has been 'not fun'." That was cruel, and I saw her wince, but I was hoping to spare her from the agony of my company. Couldn't she just take the hint?

"Okay. Um, I think you got hurt by Scott like I did. Not that I have any proof, except for how you used to look at him. Like you wanted to run him over with your car but didn't want to go to jail for it."

"Not with my car. With one of those monster trucks… you know, like Grave Digger?"

"No…"

Shrugging, I waved for her to go on. "Tell me about me. Whatever."

"So you and Scott," she went on as if there had been no interruption. "There's history there, I dunno. He never talked about it, and you never talk. But I always kind of wanted… you two to work through that a little better. Anyway, I think after that happened, whatever it was, you kind of shut down your heart. And that's not cool, since I think a really beautiful soul is trapped in there!"

A bark of laughter ripped from my throat. Couldn't hold it in, even if I tried. "Yeah, that's what it is. Inside my heart is a chamber and a sub-chamber, and the 'real me' is locked in there. And in the chamber around that, there's a sixteen-eyed monster with bat-wings and a laser cannon in its chest, keeping anyone from getting in or me from getting out. And before you even get to the monster, you have to face three challenges: the Great Riddle Gate, the Magic Mirror gate, and the world's biggest Rubik's Cube. And in front of any of those is a radioactive warthog and a mutant rhinoceros. So unless you're up for facing all that, I would give up on me, Knives. You're too good for this — too pure. Run, cinnamon roll."

By the end of all that, her eyes were watering. I had assumed she was hurt that I was being so flippant and pushing her away; that was for the best. Better to get rid of her then and there instead of waiting for her to be crushed by living through the experience that was being my friend.

I was wrong. Her hands shot across the table and grasped mine, hanging on tightly and almost knocking over both our drinks.

"Wha-"

"I will face this challenge," she told me, deadly serious and little bow lips pressed into a sober line. "I will save you from the chambers in your heart, Kim!"

"Oh… dude, you can't really…" For some reason, my face started heating up again. Stupid body, doing what it wants against my will. Probably had something to do with the entire café full of spectators and Knives holding my hands. "I w-wasn't being-"

"But I'll have to train," she mused, looking off to one side as she contemplated. "That rhino sounds pretty scary. And I've done a Rubik's Cube before, but not a big one like that…"

"People are staring!"

"But I'm not giving up! Don't worry, Kim, I'll save you from the Chamber Of Challenges!"

At least I got my wish. It was baffling that she could take me this seriously, but she dashed out the door with her milktea in hand, leaving a few people's hats spinning off their heads to land on the floor in front of the exit.

 _To Be Continued…_


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

It took me all night to stop feeling embarrassed about the scene Knives caused. Maybe deep down, I really did feel flattered that she cared this much, but it was buried under so much shame and annoyance that I couldn't even feel it accurately. Where did she get off inserting herself into my life as some weird kind of protector? Especially since I didn't need any protecting. At all. That was just some random crap I made up to make it clear that I wasn't interested in her hanging around and making me feel better. Not my fault she was too dense to realise.

A few days later, I saw her again. Just enough time to forget that the whole incident happened before I was freshly reminded because she came barging back into my life. Great.

"Are you stalking me?"

"What?" Knives asked, trying to casually drop down from the tree branch. She landed with a quiet _tmp_ against the little patch of grass around the trunk, a would-be innocent smile playing across her lips. "Noooo… not at all."

"Because it feels like you're stalking me. And what's with that?"

"Nothing!" Her hand whipped to one side, throwing the binoculars so hard that they disappeared into the sky with a brief gleam. "Nobody was watching you since you left the house this morning, don't be silly!"

Sighing, I continued walking down the pavement toward my bus stop. She kept pace with me; now that I'd found her out, apparently she had decided there was no point in keeping a low profile anymore. My hands clenched into fists in my hoodie pockets. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Well… I'm trying to do surveillance."

"Yeah, I got that."

"For the challenges? You know… see if I can tell from the outside anything more about what I'll face on the inside. So far, nothing obvious. But I wanna be ready!"

"For the imaginary challenges? Wow, quelle surprise."

" _Are_ they imaginary though?" she breathed with a slight squinting of her eyes.

"Dude… you are _so_ weird." For some reason, that made her grin at me, and I rolled my eyes. Didn't seem to be any point in trying to get rid of her anymore, so I just said, "I'm going to work. You won't have anything to do there but watch me watch old movies."

"I love old movies! Like, like… the first Harry Potter!"

Inwardly, I died a little.

~ o ~

This manic chick actually came with me to the video rental store. I shouldn't have to tell you that in this millennium, especially after the first decade of it, there's really no point in even _having_ a video rental store anymore, so we had no customers. It was literally hours of sitting around and watching movie after movie, while maybe one guy came in and asked where 'the good stuff' was kept. My glare sent him packing.

"So was it that bad wherever you went for uni that you ended up slumming it back here again?"

"Not bad," Knives told me as she sat on the counter, spinning the orange she had gotten from a convenience store on the way in her hands. It was the last thing either of us had to eat after we made our way through some cheesy Nineties rom-com. "Just not home. Toronto is just, you know? Like… everything's so _cool_ here."

"Yeah, it's freezing."

"Not right now. Summer in Toronto is like, the best. Plus my friend Tamara lives here, I was hoping I'd see her."

There was something about how genuine Knives was that reminded me of Scott when we first met. That could probably play a role in why they were attracted to each other in the first place, and I might be more certain of that if I were some kind of TV pop-psychologist. As in, Scott saw something of his younger self in Knives, the way he was before he broke my heart and Envy broke his in turn. Yadda yadda.

Maybe that's why I hadn't thrown her out yet. Nostalgia.

"Kim?"

"What?" I snapped, since I had been snapped out of my stupor.

"The movie's over."

"Oh…" Ducking my head, I reached over to pull the DVD of ' _The Mystical Head'_ out of the player. "Shit…"

Head tilted to one side, Knives asked me, "What would you be watching if you had to pick? Right now?"

" _Zombie Corpse Mutilator IV: The Zombining."_

"Really? Is it any good? I don't watch very many scary movies…"

With a long sigh, I stood up and stretched my arms over my head. Knives tried to balance the orange on the bridge of her nose, failed, and caught it before it fell very far. "You probably just want me to put on some drivel like ' _Let's Hope There's A Heaven,'_ don't you?"

"No," she laughed easily. "What about… ' _Seven Shaolin Masters'?_ I like action, but not like, just a bunch of stuff blowing up. And I heard that one's supposed to be pretty authentic, it was done by a Chinese director."

The way she looked all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed reminded me of a squirrel spotting a nut it hadn't cracked yet. Maybe I was the nut. Who knows? But for some reason, her excitement and complete disregard of whether or not I crapped all over her good mood was getting past my defenses. So much so that I said…

"Sure. Think we have a few copies."

We watched it. Not a bad flick. I guess I like it about as much as I like anything, really. Not high praise, but you get the picture. Knives was eating it up. Really… the weirdest part is that she never complained about having to sit there on the counter, just hopped down once in a while to stretch her legs and lean against it instead. Like we had been doing this for years: her coming to hang out with me while I 'worked' behind a cash register. Felt like the plot of some low-budget indie film, shot in black-and-white to be 'ironic'.

About halfway through, she did go to the lavatory, and when she came back she stayed behind the counter. I started to tell her she wasn't allowed, but decided I didn't care enough. Maybe I'm getting soft at the ripe old age of twenty-four.

"Hey," I suddenly asked, during a boring part in which the main character was meditating.

"Hm?"

"What are you doing?"

"Watching a movie."

"No… I mean like, going to uni. What's your whole deal?" I cringed; that was a pretty crappy way to ask the question. But, as usual, Knives didn't seem to mind.

"Not really sure. Just want to figure out what I'm doing. My mom wants me to be a doctor, but that is _so_ not happening. Like… I kinda want to found a martial arts school. Super cliché, but I've never really been good at anything else, except fangirling. Which isn't really a 'job' I can get."

"Sure you could. Rent yourself out as a professional fangirl."

Her eyes went round. "You can do that?!" But for once, she seemed to get that I was teasing and smiled. "Aww, silly Kim. But… actually I wonder if there'd be any interest in it… maybe I could start a whole new thing!"

"Weirdo."

"What about you?"

That caught me off guard. "Huh? I'm a drummer."

"Yeah, but you aren't really in a band right now, right? You said you and Neil's sister are just kind of trying stuff."

"It's none of your-" But I cut myself off. This wasn't an interrogation, and Knives wasn't trying to pry. Wasn't _trying_ to. "I just… am trying to figure that out. My life got kicked in the butt by a few events and I need a rebuilding year."

"But it's already been a year since your last band-"

"Knives…"

She fell silent, turning away to finish the movie. She looked _guilty,_ which wasn't really what I wanted; I just wanted her to take the hint that it's not the most fun subject to bring up for me right now. But I didn't know how to tell her that without getting all sappy and feelsy, so I didn't try.

When Comeau came in to relieve me, we split, and she followed along behind like a good puppy. A good stray puppy. One I never wanted, but for some reason, I didn't mind her there. We did start getting along toward the end of Sex Bob-omb's career, I guess.

"You wanna get some food? It's about dinner time. Or you probably have plans, huh?"

Shrugging, I managed to mutter, "Ehh." I didn't have any plans. I never had many plans anymore; met up with Stephen once a week, or less. Steph wasn't so much a _friend_ as a _colleague_ … which I guess was where both of them stood with me. Where did everybody go?

"Cool. Wanna get Sneaky Dee's?"

"Ugh… too noisy. Not in the mood."

"Poutine? Sushi?"

I started to make a very vaguely racist joke about sushi being the wrong food for her, but decided it would be more hurtful than funny. Especially to Knives, who only seemed to get the most obvious jokes. "Poutine works. I could use some gravy-laden goodness."

"Cool. Let's do it!"

She skipped off down the path, hair bouncing on the breeze. I didn't notice before that she was still keeping it short, I was so focused on the fact that she stopped dyeing it in the front. Kind of a compromise between who she had been before Scott and who she was after, maybe.

Not that I knew why I was noticing now. I must really have been bored. "Wait up, you dumbass," I grumbled under my breath as I trudged after her.

~ o ~

Somehow, grabbing dinner with this almost-a-stranger was fine. She gushed about college life, about some group of friends she found online and really connected with or whatever. I was only half paying attention while I chewed. Between bites she was drinking a ginger ale, and kept setting it down so hard that a few droplets would fly up and land on the table, or even on her face. That annoyed me, but it was also kind of… _cute_ somehow. Maybe I needed therapy.

Once we finished up, we walked to the bus stop that would take her back in the direction of her house. It was awkward. There was no real reason for it to be awkward but it was; she looked down at her boots, rocking back and forth with her hands in the small of her back.

"U-um… do you mind if I drop by more? You seemed kind of unhappy to see me at first. If you really want me to leave you alone forever…"

"Yes. I do."

"Okay. S-sorry, Kim."

Now I felt like I was kicking a puppy. She wasn't really that bad; I just hated being forced to endure the company of anyone besides myself and my inner demons. "Ugh… just don't make a big deal about it, and shut up if we get too busy, alright? God."

Her mopey face turned into a wide smile over the course of the following five seconds. "YAY!" No seriously, she said 'yay'. _And meant it._ What the fuck _was_ she even? Her arms sprang forward, and before I could tell what was about to happen, she had me caught in a crushing hug.

"Let GO. Dude, seriously! _Off!"_

"I'll see you tomorrow! Oh man, this is gonna be a great summer!" Without any further ado, she pranced over to the bus stop, walking backward so she could wave at me the entire time. Anybody could have predicted that she would trip over the old man's dachshund, but she picked herself up right away with a light giggle, apologising to both of them before waving again.

Our definitions of "great summer" don't have much overlap.

 _To Be Continued…_


	4. Chapter 4

NOTE: Apologies for how caustic Kim is at the beginning of this bit haha. Also, rest in peace, Chester Bennington.

* * *

CHAPTER FOUR

You'll probably think I'm being a super lazy storyteller when I start out with "And that's how it went for a week or so." Fuck you, I do what I want. Besides, I'm going to give you some summary stuff, so don't get _too_ bent out of shape.

And that's how it went for a week or so. Knives would disappear for a couple days, then pop back into my life to just chat and hang out, come with me to the library or work, digging through albums at Sonic Boom. Literally a stray dog. None of my attempts to be acerbic and grumpy could drive her off. Sometimes she wanted to get food together, sometimes she wouldn't bring it up. Eventually, she stopped asking about the "challenges" though, which was fine since there weren't any. One thing I had to wonder about, though…

She never invited herself back to my apartment, or asked me to go to her place. Probably the second one is because she's living with her parents while on break from uni. But it was weird; she was spending all this extra time finding me and following me, wanting to have enforced bonding time, but never wanted to see where I lived or make the night longer. It's not so much that I was _disappointed_ by that, of course. Just surprised. Like people who jumbo-size their fast food meal, then order a _diet_ soda. Why go for broke with the eats but then stop short on the drink? Just not logic that I can follow.

Anyway, that was about it until the night Steph and I were going to play an actual show instead of being stuck in the corner of a café. I hadn't been thinking too much about it, because to be honest, the idea of playing _this_ kind of music in front of an audience that actually came specifically to hear live music was terrifying. It took all night for me to psych myself up to not chicken out, since this wasn't exactly my comfort zone with live performance.

"We can do this," she was whispering backstage as we waited anxiously for the emcee to call for us. "We can. We totally can, and we totally will."

"You're going to talk both of us out of it at this rate."

"Shhh." Adjusting her ironic beret, she glanced over at me. "Almost showtime, that guy with the six harmonicas seems close to done."

Nodding, I pushed my coppery bangs out of my face. They were growing out, and finally just long enough that they were almost normal hair. I was just sick of bangs. "Yeah."

"You okay?"

My entire body bristled. "What? Fine. Shut up."

"You've been kind of weird since last week at the Other Cup. Like… we don't talk much outside of band prac-"

"I really don't want to, either," I lied. Sure, it'd be nice to have someone besides the hyper ninja chick to talk to, but Steph didn't have to offer friendship out of _pity._ We were both above that.

"Suit yourself. Oh, this is us."

Shaking off the vague feeling of nausea, I made myself follow her out onto the tiny stage. The announcer just said our names and encouraged the audience to "give it up", which they did, politely and quietly. We didn't have a band name yet since Steph said she was "over labels" and I didn't want to argue with her. Naming it would be accepting that this was actually the shitty excuse for a band that I was currently part of. The latest of many.

"This one's called 'Garland of Cornelia'," she said into the mic. "And it goes a little something like this."

What a cheeseball.

We played our set, and people actually didn't boo us off. We sounded as good as we possibly could given the kind of crap Steph writes, and dare I say it, we might have been ready for the big time if we could find a flautist. Or a _thereminist;_ that seemed about right for this pretentious bullshit. It made my skin crawl and I really wanted someone else to be playing the bongos instead of me, since really she could play bongos as well as I can — just not at the same time as the zither. But I could fill in with her for now until she found someone who hated the music less than me. Or until I found another rock outfit that wouldn't implode like the others.

Part of the gig was that we got free drinks after our set, so after more polite applause I literally only took enough time to shove my bongos into the bag before heading straight for the bar. "Steam Whistle."

"Can I see some ID?"

"Cute." But the bartender just stared me straight in the face, and he didn't look like the type to mess around. Shrugging, I got it out and showed him, and he got me a beer.

I'd barely had enough time to get two sips in before I spotted Knives at the corner of the bar, far away and close to the door. She wasn't with anybody, and she wasn't looking at me either when I first spotted her. Maybe it was a wild coincidence.

Or maybe the way she did catch me looking at her, gulped, and sprinted for the door meant that it wasn't anything close to a coincidence.

Of course I ran after her. When somebody runs away, it's only natural to want to chase them down and figure out why, isn't it? But when I got outside, she was nowhere to be seen. I thought about trying to follow, asking if anyone saw a speeding Chinese puppy-girl and which way she went, but everybody on that street was either wasted or sleeping it off in doorways. No sense in wasting my time. Disgusted, I turned and went back inside.

What did she want from me? Why didn't she wait? The whole thing was so ridiculously confusing that I focused on downing as much beer as possible for a minute or two.

"What did I miss?" Steph asked when she caught up to me, picking up on my bad mood before she even sat down.

"Life is stupid."

"We weren't that bad. They actually clapped a little. Some of them, anyway."

"Not that. Just… nevermind, I should probably go home."

Her elbow bumped mine on the bar. "Don't be like that. I actually don't hate you, even if the feeling isn't mutual."

"Maybe it should be mutual. Hatred, I mean; just… whatever." My head slumped forward until it connected with the bar. "I'm trying not to care about something that doesn't deserve to be cared about in the first place."

"What's that?"

Another sigh. "The girl from Delicious Cup."

"Oh. You and her are a thing?"

"WHAT? No. Don't jump to conclusions." My hands gently spun the empty pint glass. "She made this proclamation that she's my 'bff' now, I guess. Even though I don't care. Anyway… she was here tonight."

"She came to hear us? That's pretty decent of her."

"No, it's weird. I never told her about this show. How did she know to come see us?"

When I peeked at Steph, I saw one of her eyebrows was raised as she ordered us two more beers. "Uhh, could be the marquee out front that said 'Steph Nordegraf and Kim Pine'? Just a tiny clue."

"Those letters are _so tiny_ , though. Unless she's walking around with a microscope in her bag…"

"Look." The beers arrived, and we both paused to take a swig before she continued, "She clearly looks up to you. Younger girl, right? She needs a role model or something like that. Happens all the time, teenagers latch onto women who are still young enough to be 'friends' but not old enough to be a second mother, and kinda… you know, that word for imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, that thing?"

"Emulate," I guessed.

"Yeah, that's it. Probably all there is to it. Kind of a feather in your cap, if she wants to be like you even with you being the way you are. Don't worry about everything so much."

"And what way am I, exactly?" The point had been to put her on the defensive and shut her down, but of course, it didn't work because nobody takes me seriously anymore. She didn't even hesitate to answer before taking another drink.

"An asshole."

"Thanks."

~ o ~

"Hey!" Knives said cheerfully as she bounced into No-Account the next day.

"What were you doing at Cameron last night?"

She literally froze in mid-high five. Which I hadn't raised my hand to return, anyway; I wanted answers before we moved along to pleasantries. "Uh… what?"

"You were there. I saw you run out."

"Nahhhhh," she drawled out, very slowly thawing from her frozen pose and tucking her non-high-fived hand behind her back with its twin. "That was the other girl."

"What other girl?"

"I don't know? Not me, that's for sure. Why would I be at Cameron House?"

"Because you're stalking me. We kind of already established that part."

Wilting, she finally leaned against the counter and gave me the puppy-dog eyes. "Am not. Well… not that bad, I don't spy through your bedroom window or anything at night. Just wanna see what you do with your days."

"You could have _asked_ to come along."

"How? You didn't tell me you were playing."

The slight pout won me over, and I sighed. "Fine. Just forget it."

"You guys were good, though! Weird, but good. What do you call that kind of music?"

"Trainwreck."

"Trainwreck, huh?" she asked, again missing that I was being facetious. "It's kinda like, soothing, except for Steph's lyrics are brutal in that Nineties lesbian way."

My eyebrows twitched upward a little. "What do you know about Nineties lesbians?"

"N-nothing, except for Ellen," she laughed nervously. "But the music, I mean… I've been trying to learn about music more. Started because of Sex Bob-omb, but then I kinda started branching out from there."

Rolling my eyes, I grunted, "Nobody should start learning _anything_ because of Sex Bob-omb. Those two demos floating around online are going to forever haunt me."

"They were good! You guys rocked, you just… drifted apart."

Knives looked sad. Like, _genuinely_ sad that everything changed, the way high schoolers usually do right after graduation, or — gee, look at that — after their first year of college. Pathetic and dejected, her sweet little face the picture of a child who had lost their favourite toy and finally figured out it wasn't coming back. Maybe that's why I reached up to lay a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey… we sucked. Not worth getting upset over."

"But you _didn't_ suck. I liked it…"

"You just admitted you didn't know much about music before hearing us. Like… angsty young Kim was listening to Linkin Park constantly in junior high, and now I think they're shit. But that nostalgia factor makes me stop myself from _completely_ hating them. You know?"

"Awww," Knives cooed, momentarily distracted. "Angsty young Kim…"

"Shut up. But you get what I'm saying?"

"Yeah." Her hand came up to wipe her eyes. Had she been crying?! I hadn't noticed because no actual tears fell, and she was looking down and pouting. But now when she looked upward with a slight smile, patting my hand, I could see how shiny her eyes were. "Thanks, I guess. Still liked you guys together, though, but… I guess…"

Swallowing hard, I jerked my hand away. The whole 'emoting' thing made me very uncomfortable. But then I winced when I saw her wince. We both ended up doing a lot of wincing lately. I had to smooth that over somehow.

"Um… you can pick the next movie. Got just enough time for it before my shift is up."

Clearing her throat, she grinned up at me, and the signs that she had been crying were way too clear to ignore. It hurt for some stupid reason. "Cool. But I know even less about movies than about music, so… I dunno. That zombie movie?"

"It's not even real," I sighed, looking over at the new releases. Which were still from forever ago.

"Oh? Well then… ' _Action Doctor'?"_

"Sounds lame. What about ' _It Came From Subspace'?"_

"That could be cool… what's it about?"

"Hell if I know. But it's a movie, and I haven't seen it yet, either."

That was what we watched. And the whole time, I found myself looking over at Knives and trying to figure out why she was there. Why she cared so much about whether or not I cared the same amount as her about the implosion of the Bob-omb. Why I cared whether or not she cared. Just this annoying circle of caring that made me want to pull my hair out.

About halfway through, she caught me staring. "What?"

"Just… wondered if you wanted a drink." It was the only excuse I could think of.

"Nah. I'm good. Do you?"

"Nah."

"Do you want something else?"

Even though I felt like I might, like to ask her again why she felt it was so important to watch me and Steph play, or any of those caring-related questions that had been spinning through my head, all I did was shrug. That was simpler. Safer. Less threatening to my grumpy way of life.

But definitely not 'better'. And it was getting harder and harder not to admit that.

 _To Be Continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

NOTE: I probably bring up Rilo Kiley way more often than is necessary, but God they're just one of my favourite bands. While writing this, I ended up ordering my fave album of theirs on vinyl (just being sentimental I guess) and finally got their "Rkives" collection of b-sides, which was kind of their goodbye letter to their fans. Probably the real reason it took me this long is that I didn't want to believe they really would never put out another album...

Anyway, none of this is important to the fic at all.

* * *

CHAPTER FIVE

"MAN, that was so awesome! The way the creature exploded from inside the box and went for the girl's face, but she bashed it with the meat tenderizer?! I was totally on the edge of my seat!"

"The edge of the counter, you mean," I sighed as we headed down Bloor. As much as I hated to admit it, the movie hadn't been half-bad, even if I couldn't see myself watching it again unless a friend _really_ wanted to. And since I don't have any friends…

"Did you see the look on her boyfriend's face when she chose the monster over him? I thought he would BARF!"

"Yep."

"Oh my gosh…" With a happy little giggle, Knives skipped once before settling into a normal stride again. "Way better than that movie you were watching when I got there."

"Oh, ' _The Birds'_?"

"Yeah. It was black and white, and just kind of looked depressing."

"Right. What a flop that one was." There was no sense in fighting with someone who didn't appreciate classic cinema, after all. Not that I'm that big of a Hitchcock fan, but the old letch had a way with a camera lens.

"Anyway, sorry about knocking over that display," she went on, scratching her cheek. "Is it expensive? I still have some saved up from working at Second Cup last year…"

My shoulders moved up and down. "Doesn't matter. The boss barely gives a shit. And nothing was really broken, just kinda… bent slightly."

"Oh. Okay, good."

"Um…"

The silence stretched on for another block. Finally, Knives asked, "Um, what? Normally I'd be the one to start a sentence and forget to finish it."

That was a fair point. Why was I having so much trouble with this? My question was supposed to be something simple. _Supposed_ to be. But for whatever reason, asking it felt like a more monumental task. An important one.

"Do you… wanna… come back to my place?"

SHIT. Of course I would end up asking it in a way that sounds like _way_ more than I intended. Like I was propositioning some damn college freshman! Who's a _chick!_ I felt stupid, and embarrassed, and had to snap my lips shut to keep from babbling more, even though in reality, this actually _wasn't_ a big deal. People went to their friends' apartments all the time! Logic couldn't stop me from feeling ridiculous.

"Really?"

When I looked up, her eyes were shining with glee. Literally _shining_ — it could have been the headlights of a passing car. Not really sure.

"Nevermind," I said immediately, continuing to walk at a quick pace. "Forget I said anything."

"No, wait, but- listen- I'm talking to you!" Dashing after me, she finally caught up when I got to the corner and I had to wait for the crosswalk signal. "Kim! I promise I'll be good, don't go!"

"I just… wanted to see if you'd be interested, but not if you're going to make it into some red-letter event, okay?! GOD!"

Her arms wrapped around me, and I had to fight down the instinct to shove her into traffic. "But this is gonna be fun! I've been waiting for you to invite me back sometime!"

"You _have?!_ Then why didn't you say anything?"

"Because you already kind of acted annoyed that I was even hanging around you, and I didn't wanna push it!"

"Well, that's… that is just… totally accurate," I admitted through my clenched teeth. Much as it pained me. "But you could have just… I don't know, nevermind."

By now, how close she was started to get on my nerves. I don't know why; normally I'm not that averse to being squeezed, but just something about how _excited_ she was to come by my stupid apartment made it worse. Still, was kind of nice to actually have a friend get within my personal space bubble again. For someone to care enough to try.

"I'm just happy, that's all," she finally whispered. Then she seemed to sense that I'd bite her head off purely to avoid confronting feelings, so she drew back and smiled awkwardly. "But yeah, I'll chill with you for an hour or two."

"Fine. Uh… well, then let's, um…"

I didn't even finish the thought. Instead, I put one foot in front of the other, half hoping that Knives would forget to follow me. She didn't.

~ o ~

"What do you want, tea? Milk? Milktea?"

"Water's fine," she said with a pleasant little smile. That was starting to drive me nuts. She left her chunky boots by the door — which I don't know why she was wearing in the middle of Summer, anyway — and sat cross-legged on the counter as I got her a glass of water, then reached for a beer for myself.

"You… don't mind if I…?"

"I can drink now, too, you know," she giggled with her hands wrapped around her shins as she smiled over at me. "But, um… I don't think I should."

The cap bounced across the kitchen and into the corner when I popped it, and I told myself I'd worry about picking it up later. "Don't think you _should?_ What, did you find religion at uni or something?"

"Nah. Just… after what happened at Julie's aunt's…"

Everything in the room seemed to freeze. After a moment or two… I began to realise it really _did_ freeze.

Swallowing hard, I waved my hand back and forth past Knives's face. Totally petrified. She still looked normal, but I couldn't move her even when I pushed very slightly at her arm. This was really bizarre. I started having Vietnam-style flashbacks to the year before, but the flickering of my fluorescent light bulb was helping to distract my brain from diving down _that_ rabbit hole. Not when I already had another rabbit hole to climb out of as it was.

Actually… it wasn't the light bulb. When I looked up, I saw giant brick letters that said "PAUSE" suspended in midair, flashing a rainbow of colours. They were a little too high up for me to reach them easily, but I thought I could touch them by hopping up and down a little…

Yet I didn't. Not yet.

Pacing back and forth, I tried to think through my reaction. Why did I freeze up so much? I couldn't even fully remember what happened that night… except that I had some kind of vague snippet of Knives saying "I've kissed the lips that kissed you." And then we did a little experiment, cutting Scott out of the picture. That's it; everything else was a blank, everything that came after, most of the next morning. Gone. And I had been dreading when she might bring it up again, just in case her memory was a little clearer than mine. That was truly mortifying to me.

On the other hand, Knives was trying _not_ to let that happen again. Did she hate kissing me? Or was she just trying not to repeat a sloppy, drunken mistake? Maybe _she_ liked it but thought _I_ hated it, the same way she didn't ask to come back to my place because she knew I was barely tolerating her as a pseudo-friend.

Anyway, this was all conjecture. I was getting way ahead of myself. Knives was a nice person, even if I don't typically trust nice people (because they turn out like Scott most of the time). Sighing, knowing this wasn't really fair to her anyway, I hopped up and smacked the word that had appeared overhead.

"...I dunno," she finally finished, rubbing at the back of her neck. Then she blinked. "Hey, how'd you get into the middle of the kitchen so fast? I thought I was the one with the training."

"Nevermind that. Um… what happened that night. I don't remember a lot; I was pretty tanked. So like, it wasn't… if I did anything…" Somehow, despite having that additional time to prepare myself, I still wound up blushing and looking away from her.

"Huh? Oh… crazy, right?" Clearing her throat, she shrugged and went on, "Well, I remember more than you do, I think, but we don't have to talk about it anymore."

Swallowing hard and trying to get my stupid face under control, I said, "Thanks." A huge swig of beer gave me time to think of a subject to change to. "Sure you don't want one?"

"I'm good, thank you."

"Cool."

I led her into the living room and flopped down on the couch. She took the seat next to me, but when I turned to glare at her, she moved over to the nearby chair. Then I felt like shit for scaring her off, but she was already talking again.

"So… do you have anything good to watch here?"

"Not really. No internet or cable, and I don't have a lot of movies."

"I thought you'd have tons, working at a video store! Like, when they get rid of the old ones, you could get them for free or something…"

A long sigh issued as I slid further down, propping my feet up on the coffee table. "Nope." She did the same thing, and I tried not to laugh at her mirroring my gesture.

"So what do you do for fun when you get home?"

"Nothing."

"Really? Then why do you go to the library?"

She had me there. "Uh… no reason. Check my email, I dunno."

"Do you wanna listen to music? I, um… have some on my phone…"

The request was so nervous that I had to fight down the urge to lash out at her. To tell her that was a stupid idea, or sarcastically say it was _greeeaaat_ and she was a _genius._ These things just come naturally to me. Instead, I managed to grit my teeth and say, "Sure." After all, what better ideas were coming out of my brain? Not a one.

~ o ~

So we listened to her music, I finished my beer. I said I liked the song, she told me who it was — somebody I'd heard of but dismissed as a lame pop act. Para-whatever. Then we started talking about other bands we liked, and most of hers were cheesy or lame, but she also liked a lot of decent stuff. Somehow, we both knew Rilo Kiley, which I didn't think anybody else in the universe had heard of. Every band I brought up that she didn't know, she responded with "I'll have to check them out", which would be a brush-off coming from anyone else. But Knives meant it.

It started to get late. Part of me wanted her to stay, but most of me _needed_ her to go, so I yawned and said I was thinking about going to bed soon and she got the hint.

"Sorry I was so lame," Knives apologised with too much sincerity as I showed her to the door. "Next time, I'll try to bring my old Nintendo 64 over or something."

"Nice. Do you have Mario Kart?"

"Why _wouldn't_ I have it?" I smiled. That was the closest I usually came to laughing, and I felt my face heating up again from letting her in too far, but I also was annoyed with myself for overthinking every goddamn moment. "And Smash."

"Sorry my apartment was so boring," I shot at her, trying to make up for the smile with caustic sarcasm. Balance my arbitrary scales.

"It's okay." Totally missed it, of course. "You weren't expecting me today, and I wasn't expecting to be invited, either. But I liked hanging out with you, even if all we did was talk. It's been nice."

"Nice, huh?" Her smile seemed to cut right through my force field. "Yeah. That's a word, I suppose."

After a heartbeat, she leaned in to hug me, and I stood there in mild surprise until she let go. "Do you want my cell?"

"Why bother? You'll just show up when you feel like it, right?"

"True, true. See you later!" She was only a few steps away from the door when she called back, "Oh, and I'll check out those Stars guys!"

"Yep."

I waved. Then I was alone in my apartment, with no Nintendo to distract me from wrestling with my crazy thought patterns. Damn my mom for putting all my games in a yard sale after I moved out.

 _To Be Continued…_


	6. Chapter 6

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi to everybody from reddit! Also, sorry about the slight cliffhanger.

* * *

CHAPTER SIX

I actually didn't see much of her for the next week. First and foremost, because Comeau took a week off to go do something arty so his shifts fell in my lap, and secondly because…

Well, I don't know. She just wasn't around. It started to worry me after the first few days. Did I just act too surly and actually drive away the only ray of sunshine in my otherwise drab world? Listen to me wax fucking poetic. Been talking to Steph too much, maybe.

But when she popped back up again, it was where I was least expecting it.

I had gone into Tim Horton's to use the washrooms — that's _all,_ I think they're just barely better than the swill at Starbucks and equally overpriced. While I was peeing, I heard from the next stall…

" _KIM?!"_

So this next thing isn't all that easy for me to tell you about. I let out a HUGE fart. I mean, she literally _scared it out of me_ so I think I can be forgiven, but the entire washroom went pretty quiet right after that was pretty _loud._ Just about the most embarrassing moment of my short, sweet existence.

Clearing my throat, I tried to make my voice higher and reedier, like an old lady's voice. "Sorry, dear, I don't know who Kim is!"

"Come on, Kim, I know it's you! I can see that freckle on your toe!" My toes scrunched in on themselves, digging into the flip flops. "Too late!"

" _Why_ would you even have noticed that?!" I demanded, hating that she caught me like this. Seriously, if the toilet flushed and sucked me down into an unknown subspace pocket, I'd have been _grateful._

"Last week, while we were kicking back at your coffee table and listening to music?" Her running shoes scuffed nervously at the tile. "Noticed you have a freckle there since we weren't doing much of anything else. Dunno why, guess I just think it's cute."

"I have plenty of freckles. Why is this one cute?"

"Because it's in the middle of your middle toe? Not really sure…" Then I heard her flush. "So, whatcha up to?"

"Trying to pee. Which I did, a little prematurely. But at least I already had my pants down, so I guess it could have been way worse. Why, what about you?"

As I emerged from the stall, I expected her to be out there already. But she was going, "Hang on, just getting things situated…" There was a little rustling, and then she emerged with her arms spread wide, as if giving a glorious reveal…

Wearing a barista uniform. For the antichrist conglomerate slowly devouring Canada.

"You work _here_ now?!" I exclaimed, glancing up and down the brown-and-black uniform, at the little visor perched atop her head. "Why? I thought you had a job at Second Cup."

"I had to quit when I went to uni," she said reasonably as she went to wash her hands, glancing down at her slacks and then back over at me when I joined her at the sink. "But um, I wanted to have a little more spending money when I get back for my second year, y'know? And Second Cup is fully staffed right now, and so is Delicious Cup — I already asked. And with Julie working there…"

"Nah, I get you." Seriously, somebody needed to smack some sense into Powers.

Towelling off her hands, she asked, "What are you doing here? I thought you hated Timmy."

"Well, 'hate' is a strong word…" An accurate one. Though I'll admit, I got some really shitty service in Montreal one year that kind of solidified it from disinterest to hate. "Just needed to use the can."

"Right. Well, we do have one of those!"

"Yeah. Um…" My voice was quavering a little, I felt stupid. "Sorry for… y'know, when I…"

"Didn't say 'pardon me'? It's cool," she laughed. A sigh of relief erupted from me; I really was grateful she didn't make me say it, or say it herself. "This is the place to do that, right?"

Nodding, I towelled off myself. It was weird. We were being weird, and I couldn't quite figure out why… until she put her finger on it for us.

"But yeah, starting the job has been pretty crazy. I meant to drop by sometime this week, but with work, and my mom's birthday, and stuff…"

"Oh, don't worry about it," I said with a smile of relief. _She wasn't ditching me_. That shouldn't have mattered as much as it did, but I was seriously soothed to know that. "Been quiet around No-Account." At the last second, I stopped myself from adding "without you" to the end of that.

"I'm really, _really_ sorry. But I can make up for it! This week is less crazy. Wanna go to the zoo?"

For some reason, that made me chuckle. Something I almost _never_ do lately, and her suggestion of going to the zoo was enough. "Really? But it's so far away, and so pricey…"

"I just got my first paycheck. My treat, to make up for being gone lately."

"Well…" Again, she did that weird thing where she enchanted me with her warmth and enthusiasm so much that I couldn't say 'no'. "What day? I'll probably be working."

"Then you pick. I get off at five today, so that's not enough time, but I'm off Saturday…"

"Me, too. Around noon?"

"Sure," she answered with that sweet, shy smile that made me want to flush _her_ down the can. "Meet up there, or at your place first?"

"We can just meet there." I turned toward the washroom door, but something was holding me back. "Um…" I wanted to say something about how much I missed her, even though I didn't fully comprehend why. "Hey…" I wanted her to know that despite how shitty of an attitude I had sometimes, I really truly valued our fucked-up, almost-one-sided friendship.

And while I was stammering, trying to get past my hangups, she hugged me from behind. "Yeah." Then she released me and held the door open. "My break's probably way over by now."

"Right," I sighed. "Go back to slinging brown water. See you tomorrow."

"See ya!"

And she went back behind the counter, while I went down the street shaking my head so violently that it almost came loose and bounced across to the other side.

~ o ~

The zoo was fine. I'd visited it before, of course, but it had been years. More or less you can expect the animals to do the same things they did the last time, so it's not like a repeat visit will reveal anything new.

But the animals ranged from cute to interesting; giraffes and cheetahs and hyenas, oh my. Knives wanted to look at literally everything, and who was I to stop her? This was the reason we came, so it would be dumb for even me to act like that was strange of her. Meanwhile, I walked around with an iced capp I got from near Tundra Trek and mostly watched her reactions, skipping around in that white babydoll tee and jean shorts, eyes wide and mouth flapping about how much fun she was having, and how big this animal was or how small that one was. That was the real attraction for me.

Which began to worry me a little. Really, this whole thing with Knives already did. Not because I was developing some big gay crush; I didn't _think_ that was it, and I'm no homophobe. But if I wasn't crushing on her, then what _was_ I doing? This was such a weird friendship, and kind of the opposite of the casual relationship I normally enjoyed with my sparse acquaintances. Something about it was so… _intense._ But that was probably all Knives, and very little from my end. She was a force of nature.

Once we had seen and done most of everything there was to do without paying extra, like buying souvenirs that nobody would care about in two days, we headed back to catch the bus toward our respective homes. When she brought up dinner, I almost jumped on it.

"Let's do Sneaky Dee's. It sucks, but if we get there early enough, it might not be deafening and full of annoying college kids."

"Like me?"

"Yes, like you. One is enough."

"Hmm, I was gonna head back to my house, but…" Her cheeks bunched in a smile. "You think we could get Stephen or Julie to show up? Make it a real reunion."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess."

Her smile slipped a notch. "Do you not want them to come?"

"Nah, it's fine. Even if Julie is a cunt lately, especially to you."

"That's just Julie," she laughed it off. Not that I thought she should have; the way she acted toward Knives was totally unacceptable, and I still wanted to give her a piece of my mind about it. "Just Stephen then."

Shrugging, I stretched my arms overhead and crossed them behind my neck as we rode along. "What about Neil?"

"He probably wouldn't want to see me. Too many awkward memories." Then she cleared her throat to push past that detail. "Steph could come, though."

"Sure. She's been acting like she wants to hang outside of practices and shit lately. So… I'll invite her, maybe Stephen and Joseph. Julie can eat a bag of dicks."

That seemed to startle her slightly. At first, I thought maybe I had gone too far, but instead she whispered, "I've never heard that phrase before. It's hilarious! Because like, a whole bag of dicks!" She giggled, and I giggled with her. Sometimes I just couldn't help it around that doofus.

~ o ~

Not too much later, we were in Sneaky Dee's. It's kind of a grubby hole, but the food is pretty good, drinks are medium-cheap and sometimes they play decent music. Steph showed and so did Stephen, though Joseph stayed back because he was busy "mixing". Probably a lie, but who cares? Knives made a dumb joke about "Steph and Stephen", which made Steph laugh while Stephen and I just rolled our eyes at each other.

It was nice. We talked about the Sex Bob-omb days, and the Sonic and Knuckles days before that. Made noises about getting a band together ourselves, but with Dynamite Headdy doing as well as it was, Stephen had no real motivation to spin more plates.

Everything was going fine… until we started talking more in-depth about the end of Sex Bob-omb.

"Haven't heard from him since then," Stephen confirmed as we stared at the mostly-empty plates, patting our stomachs. In his case, scratching at his stubble. "Can you live in subspace? Like, I still don't really understand that whole thing very well."

"No, I don't think it's a place you get to stay," I went on. "Of course, I've only been there once or twice. Scott dragged me through a door so we could escape from a crazy samurai." I tried not to glance at Knives, and she didn't seem to notice, either.

"I think there are subspace pockets along with the highways," she said as she sipped at her lemonade. Guess she was serious about not drinking. "But there aren't buildings or restaurants or anything there. So they must be living somewhere in normal space, right?"

Steph shrugged, leaning against the table on her elbows. "Wouldn't know. Never had much experience with it myself. So Scott dragged you through, Kim?"

My body was already freezing up, a response to being needled about my past with Scott so much. "Yeah."

"He was always kind of self-centered, in that dopey, doesn't-realise-he-is way," she mused as she stared across the restaurant at the back of the neon sign in the window. "Even when you two were dating…"

"Oh yeah," Knives said as she turned to me. "You never talked about that much." And I didn't want to now. But she wasn't going to let it drop, was she?

"What is there to say? He was an idiot, I was an idiot for not seeing how much of one he was. He liked to pretend that he rescued me from Simon to make himself more 'heroic'. I'm better off without him."

"That's what you say about Jason, too," he laughed, and I felt myself growing even more earnest in my desire to be silent and not have to react to any of this. "And… that's probably true. Sometimes I worry about Hollie going through the same thing eventually."

"She deserves it. They both do."

Pointing her fork at me, Steph said, "You always do that. Blame everyone else for all your problems. Not saying they're all your fault, either, just… maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle?"

"Always," Stephen sighed.

"Well, I think you guys are being too hard on Kim," Knives put in with a little pout, picking at the communal plate of nachos. "Scott dumped me, too, and he wasn't very smart about how he did it, but that's just Scott; he doesn't know how to handle serious stuff until he can't avoid it, I think. That's not her fault."

"Yeah, you and she both dated Scott," Steph said with a slightly suspicious smile. "Funny that you're hanging out together now, despite that."

"Why is it funny?" It was a genuine question, not an accusation. Of course it was. Knives was such a wide-eyed marshmallow.

"Uhhh, because normally you don't get along with your ex's exes?"

Shrugging, Stephen grumbled, "I get along with Julie better than most of you do."

"That's because you turned out to be gay."

"What does that have to do with it? We still broke up when I started dating Joseph."

"Have you ever noticed all our names start with an S, a K, or a J?" Knives observed out of nowhere.

"Yeah… well, except for Neil."

"Or those other guys," Steph said. "Like Lucas Lee, and the other people who Scott beat up?"

Stephen shook his head. "No, they don't count."

"Why not?"

"They aren't part of 'us', they're the bad guys," he went on reasonably, gesturing to the table with an open palm as if the gesture would help sell his argument. "But then they still do that supervillain thing." When both Steph and Knives kept staring at him in confusion, he sat up a little straighter in the hard wooden booth. "You know… Lucas Lee, Roxie Richter, Gideon Graves… Ken and Kyle Katayanagi. That thing."

"Alliteration," she breathed. "The highest form of evil."

"Ohhhhh," Knives said with a hand in front of her open mouth. "That's so weird how I never noticed! But what about Todd Ingram? I mean, I hearted The Clash At Demonhead, so I remember him better…"

"He's the outlier. I mean, not _every_ villain has to adhere to the trope for it to be a trope."

"What's a trope?" Steph asked. But Stephen wasn't listening; he was staring at me, eyes squinting slightly. I tried to ask what he was staring at…

But I couldn't. My lips wouldn't move, and my eyes wouldn't blink. Nothing happened despite my best efforts.

"Oh shit," he whispered. "Kim turned to stone again."

 _To Be Continued…_


	7. Chapter 7

NOTE: I hope you guys are still enjoying! Haven't had many reviews but I'm guessing that's mostly because of this fandom being a lot smaller now than when the movie/comic came out.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

Knives was the first to react, and the most strongly. She scooted back a full foot, then forward again to grasp at my stony arm where it rested on the table. I could still see and hear everything, but couldn't move, couldn't react to any of it. What was this?

"Omigosh KIM! What happened? Oh no, her skin is all grey!"

"That's because she's _stone,_ " Stephen sighed patiently, gesturing for Steph to exit the booth so he could get up. "Hang on, I think I have a bottle of Soft left in the car."

Steph goggled at him as he started walking out of the restaurant. "Wait… _you have a car?!"_

Knives and Steph didn't say much while he was gone. Just kept looking at me worriedly. How could I blame them? This was really fucking weird, and my life had been pretty weird all around up until that point. Knives was more aware of it than I was, even. One thing bothered me, though…

He said 'again.'

Why didn't I remember this happening before? You'd think turning to stone would stick out in one's memory, but I literally couldn't remember. Lots of weird shit, but not becoming a statue in the middle of a restaurant. And I couldn't begin to suspect why… except that I had been feeling pretty isolated and wanted to close myself off from what we were discussing before that point. Maybe that had something to do with it. But I doubted I would get any solid answers, since life doesn't come with an instruction manual.

Maybe it's a previously-owned game.

Stephen got back, and he had a little alabaster bottle that looked like it belonged in a museum in his hand. Without even waiting for anyone to react, he pulled out the stopper and poured what felt like warm water over my head. After a few seconds, the stone encasing me began to crack and crumble, and then shattered, leaving me free to move.

"Oh thank GOD," was the first thing I gasped out before I rubbed my jaw, which was the only part of my body that continued to feel stiff for some reason. I noticed Steph picking up one of the rock flecks that had broken off when the potion cured my condition.

" _Ewwww."_

Knives leaned a little closer and stroked my cheek, which gave me a weird flutter in the pit of my stomach. "Ooh, and now your skin is so soft… OH! Is that why they call the potion that?"

"Yeah, but only because anything is softer than she was a minute ago," Stephen grunted. I noticed the bottle had vanished into thin air once its contents were drained. "God, you're lucky I still had some left over from the last time…"

"Yeah… about that," I started. "What are you talking about?"

He snapped his fingers. "Right, you were passed out when it happened. This was at that Christmas party, the year before we met Knives?"

"Oh yeah…" Some weird sense of deja vu was creeping up my spine as he started talking about it. "That was a weird night. In fact, I could swear… I didn't wake up for a couple days…"

"You were still getting used to hanging around Scott again. Because of the history. Anyway, I could tell you weren't totally fine with him hanging around, but didn't fully get why since we didn't know each other very well yet. Anyway… eventually, the Christmas party at Comeau's house was where shit really hit the fan.

"So much eggnog was in your system, and you were jealous that Scott was hitting on Julie — or maybe just annoyed," he conceded when I glared daggers at him. "I don't fucking know. But yeah, I could tell you were really upset, and Scott asked you some question about how many Eiffel Towers it would take to reach the moon, and you just let him have it. Right there, in the middle of the party, you started tearing him apart about everything he was constantly fucking up or doing that got on your nerves. Never made it about the breakup, but you were really laying into him and you didn't care who heard you. He kind of shrugged it off, because he was already two gee-and-tees in and didn't have the headspace to understand the points you were trying to make, and that only pissed you off worse. So you bailed. An hour later, I went upstairs to check on you… and found a Kim statue lying in one of the beds."

"Damn," Steph breathed with wide eyes.

I had a sneaking suspicion why that had happened. Both times. But hell no was I ever going to admit it to either of them. "Alright, so I was a statue. How'd you get these bottles of stuff?"

"Soft. It was Scott, actually; he was useless until the next morning, but when Julie straight-up accused him of being to blame he stepped up. Like he does when he has no choice but to step up. I won't get into the whole thing, but he basically was told by a talking owl that he had to place six crystals in a statue and go inside the temple next to it to defeat Negascott and his pet pig, or something. Anyway, the pig had a bunch of bottles of Soft. If he didn't lose them in the move, I think Scott might still have one of them, too."

The table was pretty much speechless. I mean, what do you say to that? After a minute or two, I finally managed to say, "Has… this ever happened again? Am I a perpetual gorgon-victim, or what?"

"Nah, just twice."

"Oh. Well… that's something."

"What does it feel like?" Knives asked, eyes completely round.

"Um, weird. I don't really know how to describe it; just couldn't move." The way they were all staring at me set my newly-freed skin crawling, so I stood up from the booth. "Listen, I think I'm gonna take off. It's been weird, as usual."

"Wait! I can come with!" But I shook my head. "I can't come with?"

Swallowing down a sarcastic comment, I managed to simply say, "Later." Then I was off into the night.

~ o ~

Whatever was going through my head, I didn't try any harder to get into contact with Knives. Still. But my conscience didn't yell at me too badly for ditching her, since at least I didn't start telling her to stop hanging around me all the time, or demand to know _why_ she would want to in the first place. I kept it to a single word to mark my departure and bailed.

A couple days later, the stray showed up during my work shift. The minute I saw her, I felt regret about Sneaky Dee's but didn't bring it up. And neither did she.

"So my dad gave me this movie," she began as she pulled a DVD out of her red-and-blue-striped purse, as if we had been talking all day and she only left to get the movie and come back. "It's supposed to be some epic story of samurai and all this stuff… I dunno. Anyway, I figured you didn't seem to hate the Shaolin movie, so we could try this? If you wanna."

With a slight shrug of my shoulder, I nodded at the player under the counter. But the minute she was bent over it with her back turned, I let myself smile. Maybe I hadn't messed up everything, after all.

A little while after it started, I grew some goddamn balls and said, "Hey… sorry about the other night."

"Hmm?"

"You know. Ditching you and the Stephs."

"Oh," she laughed with a grin. "The Stephs." What a loser. "And it's fine. You just went through being a statue, so I think it's normal to feel weird." We could have left it at that, except she added in a whisper, "I'm just glad you're alright."

Now I _had_ to say more. The part of me that hated confronting feelings was hoping to get out of it with the apology and go back to the movie, but my conscience was being a noisy bitch. "No, it's not 'fine'." That got her attention more than anything. She turned more fully on the counter and cocked her head to one side. Waiting for me to continue. I scratched the back of my head. "Uh… I'm… Stop looking at me, okay?!"

"Sorry!" she breathed, turning away again.

"Okay. So the thing is… I think you know by now that I tend to be an asshole. And don't try to tell me I'm not," I headed her off when she took a breath. "But it's just… how I react to things. I don't even know why you like hanging out with me in the first place, really; I'm so… toxic."

"I don't think 'toxic' is fair," she said with a pout. "But, um, you seem to have something else to say?"

"No, that was it." Even though it wasn't. Not really. But the last part took care of most of it.

"Well, I like hanging out with you. The way you look at stuff can be pretty funny sometimes, and other times you're just super smart. Or not smart, but… _wise."_

"I'm wise? What are you talking about?"

Picking at the hem of her boot, Knives thought over her words for a moment as the subtitles flashed past in front of some black-and-white Asian dudes with serious expressions. "Like, you understand the world or something. In ways I don't yet."

What Steph had been telling me about Knives needing a 'role model' came back to me, full force. But I also thought that wasn't completely fair; Knives might have been a little naïve, a little pie-eyed and puppyish, but she wasn't an actual child. We were having a serious conversation and she was totally holding her own. Maybe none of us had given her enough credit. Especially not me.

"I don't understand shit," I told her softly. "Except that… for whatever 'only Chaus understand' reason you have, you seem to not hate me. And I want you to know… uh…" My shoulders rose and fell. "Ditto."

Her smile turned wider, and I had to look away completely and stay looking away. My cheeks were getting hot again, even though I knew — _knew_ that I was just trying to tell her she was my friend. Despite how it felt. Despite how much I liked seeing that her face lit up when I said that.

"Kim?"

"What?"

"You're not an asshole." We both laughed a little, her more than me, and she reached down to squeeze my forearm. Then turned back to the TV.

However, after that point, I had a lot of trouble focusing on the movie. My brain was preoccupied with how she had touched me, both emotionally and physically. This one little knife that cut through my defenses so easily I might as well have been a pat of butter.

 _To Be Continued…_


	8. Chapter 8

NOTE: This is where things are gonna start to shift a bit. Also thanks to Webdog for the kind words, I'm glad you're still enjoying my fics after all this time!

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CHAPTER EIGHT

Another week or so passed. To be honest, you really missed nothing, other than Stephen giving me a plastic baggie with some of my stone-flakes in it because he wasn't sure what else to do with them. He also gave me one of the bottles of Soft to keep in my place, just in case it happened again. That did seem like a precaution I should have already thought of myself.

And a lot of Knives. A _loooot_ of her hanging around, and finally weaseling my number out of me so she could text and ask if she could come over. I ignored a lot of her texts, but she still always managed to get me to agree to a time she could come bouncing through my door with one of her attack-hugs at the ready. We mostly just watched movies or played video games. Met up with Stephen and Joseph some other night at a sushi place. And the whole time, I didn't know what to do with myself.

Before you ask, there were a couple of close calls. Because we can all tell where this is going already, so I'm just putting it out there.

Three nights after we were watching the samurai movie, she came in for a hug. Slower than usual, and I mean like, at a snail's pace. Turned out, she just thought it would be funny if we bumped noses, but I was just slightly-drunk enough to think she was going in for something else. I blame the tequila shots, and therefore, on Steph who had ordered them. Dumb lush. But I managed to play it off that she was just too close to my face, and that was why I flinched.

Then there was the next day, when we split a Canadian from Pizza Pizza for dinner. We both went in for a slice at the same time and our hands touched; that old thing. I accused her of being a greedy bitch, but she was just biting her bottom lip and giggling before she flicked a mushroom at me. It made me either want to slap her, or… I don't know. For the life of me, I don't know what the fuck was going on in my head, but she let me brush it off and grab a different slice.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. Which isn't exactly what happens here, but like, go with it, okay?

~ o ~

"I don't understand," she was sighing as she swung upside-down from the monkey bars in Hillcrest Park, jeans-clad knees taking the brunt of her slight weight effortlessly. "My mom acts like she's so worldly, but then she doesn't want me to have a totally normal barista job because it'll distract me from meeting 'a nice man' or becoming a doctor, or whatever."

I sighed as I picked at some peeling paint on one of the bars. I was sitting on a 'step' for the kids to climb up to the slide, though my omnipresent black cloud of misanthropy had kept any actual children far away from us. "She's being a mom. That's what they do: pass judgment on their children's decisions. Mine are in the professional league."

"That sucks." Her eyes went up — and in this case that means they were pointed at the sky, not above her head, which would have been sand. "Don't my tits look great like this?"

"Sure," I snorted. "I m-mean, what makes you think I noticed?"

"Nothing, Kim," she giggled. "Just a thought I had. Oh, did you know TCAD is getting back together?"

I pursed my lips for a moment before answering, "Are they really?"

"Kind of. I mean, it's not the original lineup, though. That'd be _huge_ news, since that jerk Todd was turned into coins!" She flipped up through the bars and began walking on top of them, arms out to the sides to help maintain her balance. "Think the new bassist is that girl from Smashing Turnips. They broke up, remember? Plus they're holding auditions for new drummers but I heard she doesn't want guys applying. Sounded like she was pretty sure of that."

"So now they're an all-girl band? Quaint."

"Envy said in a press release that she was thinking about staying solo, but I guess she had a change of heart. But she did start going by 'Natalie' again, 'cause the solo career didn't work out for her. She said 'I'm just not cut out to be a pop star, it's too high-maintenance'." Then she gasped and turned to look at me. " _DUDE!_ You should so totally try out!"

My eyes widened. "What?! Knives, you-"

"Think about it! You're a drummer, and a girl, and they're super-"

" _KNIVES!"_

But I wasn't upset about her needling me into life decisions. She wasn't paying attention to what she was doing anymore, and had started to slowly fall off the monkey bars. A little yelp of surprise sounded as her running shoes slipped down and back off the metal, arms windmilling. The world slowed to a crawl. Heart in my throat, I dove, and just barely managed to catch her before falling into the sand around the playscape.

"Shit… are you okay?!" I demanded, my voice an octave too high.

But she wasn't listening. Her eyes were round, and she had her hands locked around the back of my neck. She looked stunned speechless, which was a new look for her. My hands flexed awkwardly in her armpit and under her knee as I held her slight weight, which was still a little heavy but I'm a drummer, so I have a decent amount of upper body strength. I could handle it.

"You saved me," she breathed.

"What? Well… y-yeah, I couldn't let you… fall."

"Um… I probably would have been fine. It's only like five feet, and there's sand everywhere." Her face was closer again. Probably going in for another hug, like last time. "But you caught me, Kim."

For some reason, I couldn't put her down yet. Swallowing down my panic, I whispered, "What if you broke your neck? I'd… I could never live with letting that happen to you."

"Why not?"

She was prying into my feelings and motivations too much. Gruffly, I snapped, "Who else would annoy the hell out of me every day? What a stupid ass question."

Even though that was intended to get her to laugh and call me a dork, or say I was funny, or just to tell me I could put her down, it didn't seem to work the way I hoped.

Because Knives kissed me. And I mean _kissed_ me… and I kissed _back_. Really, we might have done it at the same time, like when you and a friend automatically go in for the fist bump when something really awesome happens because you're both on the same page. Something about the moment just _needed_ it, even if I didn't fully understand why. Her lips were soft and sweet, and familiar; I knew we'd kissed when drunk, even though I couldn't remember most of it. And the gentle weight in my arms made it perfect.

Of course, once we broke apart a few seconds — minutes, hours, centuries — later, I went into pure panic mode. Or tried to. But the lip-on-lip contact had robbed me of actual power and ability to move. Not like the time I turned to stone, though; this wasn't that serious.

"O-oh," was all she said at first. Though the look in her eyes and the way her breathing was so rapid and shallow told me that the "oh" meant a lot more than that, so just this once, I didn't snap at her to explain.

"Holy balls," I managed to breathe.

"Where did _that_ come from? I mean… it was…"

When her face started glowing, a small, private, sacred smile of pure joy blossoming, I had to drop her to the sand and stand back up, turning around to grip the monkey bars overhead to keep myself from falling over. Why was I so dizzy? Why was I overreacting? I mean, a little part of me had been able to tell that we were trending in this direction. Like magnets, or gentrification of old neighbourhoods; sometimes you just can't stop it. Yet I had kind of thought it might never happen. Or at the very least, it would take longer than a few weeks.

"Kim?" One of her hands came to rest in the small of my back.

"Whoa, whoa," I squeaked, spinning around so fast I almost fell myself. "J-just because we- I mean, you shouldn't- don't do that!"

"Sorry," she breathed as she lowered the hand, rubbing her fingers together as if trying to rid them of the memory. I know I could definitely still feel them on my back.

"No, don't…" Sighing, I pressed both my hands into my face. "AGH!" There was a high-pitched whistling sound. "What the hell is even happening anymore?!"

After a few seconds of silence, Knives cleared her throat. "You, um… does steam come out of your ears normally?"

"No! And it didn't just now, either!"

"But I saw-"

"Nevermind that! Just…" Running hands through my hair, and feeling that it did feel a little warmer and more _moist_ than it should have been, I looked over at her. "Can we just rewind about five minutes and forget that ever happened? I… whatever that was, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for it, Knives."

A little shrug of her shoulders as she stared down at her running shoes. "I haven't unlocked that power-up yet, Kim. Sorry."

"Stop apologising, too! Like… we didn't do anything _wrong,_ it's just way past what I can handle right now. Okay? Please, just… I can't even believe we're having this conversation. And on a playground!"

Ugh. Do you have any idea how terrible I felt? Panicking and making her feel like it was all her fault. It was so hard for me to explain my own feelings that I wound up trampling all over hers. But I didn't know how else to react.

"Kim… it's okay," she said finally, cautiously putting her hands on my shoulders. I twitched, took a step backward, but she followed and kept them there. "It's okay. I don't really understand this, either; I mean, I didn't think I was a lesbian. But then again, I didn't at Julie's aunt's, either, and that still-"

"Let's not talk about that, either," I grunted, ashamed of myself. "Especially since you were still in high school."

"Barely," she made sure to remind me. "But… seriously, you made me feel loved that night, and you made me feel loved just now." My eyes must have bulged in panic, because she reassured me, "Like a friend! A good friend who, uh, doesn't mind… _that_ sometimes? If that's cool…"

"Just how far did we go?" I had to ask.

"Made out for a little while. Some… other stuff, but nobody took off their swimsuit," she assured me nervously, and I sighed in some slight relief. "And it was great! But if you want to not do that again, I'm fine with that. Seriously!"

Temptation reared its ugly head. "Well…" Then I shook myself, gripping at my hair around her hands still on my shoulders. "GAH! Like, I'm kinda curious, but also have never… I mean, I've dated guys all my life, this is a pretty big curveball of a life choice, if it is one. And I didn't think you were anything more than just a friend before today, so isn't it crazy to change statuses all of a sudden like this?"

"Why does it have to be some big 'choice'?" she chuckled softly. It made me mad that she wasn't being serious. No… that isn't true. It made me _jealous_ that she wasn't having as much trouble with it as I was. Yeah, that's way more accurate. "I mean, either you want to kiss me or you don't. Whatever, right?"

"Right. Just so easy. Is that why you've been hanging around me so much? Hoping to wear me down?"

"What? No, I wouldn't- that's not it at all!"

"Are you _sure?"_ She squirmed, but didn't back down. "All that time hanging around, you just were hoping that it would happen again. Great. I thought I really had a friend, and you're just another Scott waiting to happen."

But that was a low blow and we both flinched, her hands falling away from me. Before I could apologise, Knives got to it first. "Kim, I'd never do that. It's hard to blame Scott for what he did, because I hearted him so much, but that's just… not the kind of thing I could ever do to a friend! S-so please, don't say that I would…"

"Knives… shit." Pinching the bridge of my nose, I said, "Okay. You're right, I'm… not being fair."

"You're freaking out is what you are."

"Definitely. Can we… I don't know. I want to run away and hide, but I also don't want you to leave."

"Wanna go to Delicious Cup?" she suggested, again touching my arm. This time, I didn't react, either positively or negatively. "We, um, can just talk there. PDA in the café would be a little gross so it'll make kissing less of a… does 'issue' make sense? Is that the best word?"

Nodding, I swallowed hard. "Yeah. It's a great word. Maybe even word of the day, because I clearly have issues."

"Kim, nooo," she half-whined, grasping my wrist and pulling me along. We only made the briefest of stops to snag our bags from the deserted swingset before heading off past the wading pool. "I mean… I kinda freaked out the next morning after the first time, too, so I totally get it! I just… already worked through all that, maybe? Not with a legit therapist, just did a lot of thinking, and talking to Tamara."

"You talked to Tamara about _this?!"_

"Not a lot! Just, like, sorting through my feelings! And she wouldn't tell anybody, she's my BFF!"

My body felt like it wanted to turn into stone again, but I forced myself to breathe, to stop acting like every weird moment of my life was the end of the world. "Okay… you're right. Back in those days, I probably would have tried to talk to Stephen about this if I could remember more about that night. But I just wrote it off as being drunk. I mean, I never tried to make out with Ramona, or Julie, or…"

"Actually, I kinda heard that you and Ramona had a slight moment," Knives laughed. When I turned round eyes on her, she protested, "From Lisa! Like, remember when we all got together before she moved away?"

"What moment did we have?" I demanded.

"Something about you and she and Scott being all in the same bed, and you telling them both that you loved them." When she looked back after a few seconds of silence and caught me blushing, she giggled. "You were _talking,_ not doing anything else. At least, I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about anything else."

"Oh, good. I mean, if I had a threesome with Scott and that hair-changing hipster, I'd blow my stack."

The bridge of her nose crinkled from the force of her smile as we made our way toward the bus stop. "Already did that once today. Seriously, can you teach me that trick with the steam?"

"GOD, SHUT YOUR HOLE!"

 _To Be Continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

All the way to the Other Cup, I was pretty quiet. Knives kissed me. Or I kissed Knives, or whatever. AGAIN! This was getting pretty ridiculous by now. I mean, it was one thing when we were shitfaced and making out because we weren't sober enough to know better, but what excuse did I have now? None. Yeah, I could have tried saying "I was worried about her falling and the emotions were running high," but the truth is that wouldn't happen if we didn't both think about it before the moment came. So nah, I won't hide behind that.

Until we had a table, we chatted about small things. Then Knives dove right back in.

"Soooo, can I be totally honest? Like, it's making me want to crawl under the table, but…"

"Yeah, fine. Go for it." I wanted to say "No, please stop." But maybe if we got it out of the way, we could move on a little faster and I could spend less time wanting the same thing Knives wanted: to hide.

"Okay. So, um… that was a _great_ kiss." When I groaned and slumped lower in my seat, she went on, "Seriously! Like, I've only ever kissed you and Neil in a way that was… y'know, more than just a peck like with Scott. But for serious, it's so much better when you're sober."

"Ugh… I feel so _gross_ that it happened when I was wasted." When her smile slipped a notch, I held up a hand. "Not because it's you! Just, that's a crappy way for a kiss to happen, even if it's the first or last kiss, or whatever. Probably a really normal thing, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah," she half-laughed, scratching her cheek. "First kiss, huh?" Then she perked up slightly, saying "Washroom, be right back!" That came out of nowhere. But when I only shrugged, she went skipping off with her purse swinging back and forth.

While she was gone, I sipped at my espresso and tried to take stock. Maybe Knives really didn't mind. Anything: that I was a girl, that I was a real asshole of one… that we both slobbered all over each other while intoxicated instead of _this_ being our first kiss, under the monkey bars after I caught her from falling like any normal couple.

And those thoughts only made me feel more panic rising. _A normal couple._ Parts of my brain sure had hopped on the Pinechau bandwagon in a fucking hurry! But whenever I tried to think of real, legitimate reasons not to try going out with her — at least _try_ it once, I failed. She was sweet, and earnest, and already seemed pretty open to the idea. Probably was holding back her interest level because she could see me hitting the roof the way I was.

What about sex? Was I ready to bang a _chick?!_ Maybe not. But then again, Knives never spent any time talking about anything sexual. She would if I brought it up, but otherwise she seemed more interested in other subjects, like martial arts, music, talking about old times… kissing me. Bedroom stuff could probably wait a while.

As I saw her emerge from the restroom, looking relieved and satisfied with her "mission" in there, I smiled to myself before she could catch me doing it. Knives Chau… about the same height as me, but a little shorter. Did that make me the guy? I mean, I know they say that's not really how lesbians work, but I'd never _been one_ before. Or whatever I was turning into. I didn't know if I could handle that. Bossing her around was kind of fun because she "played along", but the minute she gave a hint she was upset, I crumpled like a cheap suit. Well, that was fine; I hated those kind of He-Man neanderthal dudes, anyway. Sure as fuck didn't want to _be_ one.

How naturally all these thoughts came to me was a little scary. One kiss in the park, and I was already picking out china patterns. No pun intended.

"Sorry," she whispered with an apologetic smile as she sank back into her chair. "What'd I miss?"

"An existential quandary." Sighing, I sat forward again. "So."

"So?"

"Um, if I tell you that… I don't want to kiss you again, what would you say?"

Her answer came a lot faster than I expected; only a second or two of her looking up and away, before she focused on me again. "I'd say that's cool. We tried it, and just because I liked it doesn't mean you had to."

"You liked it!" I breathed in shock, and she grinned. Then I rubbed at my face with both hands. "Fine, fine. Hypothetically, let's say it's the opposite; that I _did_ like it and that I might want to do it again. What would you say?"

"I'd say… we could do it later tonight. At your place?" When my face began to feel cold, and my hands shook, she reached out and laid one of hers on top of mine. "Or not. Probably smarter to like, let this chill overnight and see how we feel in the morning, huh?"

"Y-yeah. Yeah, that's… let's do that."

White teeth flashed in the light as she grinned. "You're too cute, Kim. I mean it, and not just because of the kissing. I always thought you were both cute _and_ cool."

"A rare combination indeed. Geeze… it's not freaking you out at all that a girl kissed you? An older girl?"

"Not _that_ much older," she scoffed. "What, twenty-two?"

"Twenty-four." Another shrug, so I let that drop. "Okay, so yeah, we're both… young-ish, it's not like I'm a cougar. But you're a teenager so it's kind of…"

"I'm not in high school, though. Don't forget that." She took a sip of green milktea, which Julie had made without complaint this time. Probably got chewed out by her manager. "But nah, I don't mind. Scott's the same age as you. And Neil was my age, but he was _so_ not ready to date, so that's… like, yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm alright with it if you are."

Those were all fine points, and I couldn't argue against any of them. "Well, maybe I don't even want to do that. Maybe I just want to be friends with benefits." Then I facepalmed. "Like kissing. _Not_ jumping straight into the sack. God, why can't I talk today?"

Of course, the only effect that had was making Knives blush. "Y-yeah, I'm… really not sure how that should work. Even if we were a normal boy and a girl, or whatever, I'm still pretty… um, virginal."

"Really? You and Neil didn't…?" She shook her head. "That's right, I think you said."

"Anyway, I'm cool with, um, taking it slow. Or not taking it anywhere! All up to you."

My face fell into my hands again and I groaned, "Someone kill me. I didn't sign up for this when I became your friend. It was supposed to be _easy,_ because you're so nice… and now look where we are. Will-They-Or-Won't-They-opolis."

That seemed to take Knives' breath away for a few moments. I didn't know why until she found her voice again. "Well, there is one good thing about this freaking you out."

"Oh yeah? What?"

"Too many distractions to keep pretending you aren't a good person."

"Yeah? Well, I say I'm terrible. Are you saying I'm lying?"

"To yourself," she countered, which I couldn't pretend to disagree with. This little smirk of hers might have been the very first time I ever saw Knives looking smug about anything, and even then, it was way less than most people I know are capable of. "I knew you were good under all that grump. Just… didn't like people to know for some reason? I guess? But you just told me I'm nice."

Blinking, I had to sit back in mild confusion. Did I really say that? Guess so. My face was trying to turn red again, so I lowered myself down into the seat and grumbled, "Shut up."

"Okay, just to make sure: when you say 'shut up' to me, you really just mean that I'm probably right and you don't want me to make you admit it, right? Because if you really want me to stop talking… I could."

The little thrill of guilt that shot through me kept me from saying, "Yes, stop talking forever." Instead, all I did was reach across the table and hold her hand.

"Omigosh," she breathed very softly, eyes widening as she stared down at our unified fingers.

"NOW you have to shut up, before I run away from this café."

~ o ~

Not long after that, we made our way back to my place. Just when I had started to get used to having her over, it not being a weird thing, this happens. Now she's… what, my girlfriend? I don't know, but it's weird and I don't like weird. There's enough of that in my life already.

"It's kinda cool that we can just be… whatever," she glowed with a big smile, clasping my hand and swinging it back and forth as we got closer to my building. "Friends with _just kissing_."

"Right." Then, because I can't keep my giant mouth shut, I say, "What if I decide I want that, instead, though? The whole 'dating' experience."

"What do you mean? Like… picking you up and giving you flowers?"

"Yeah. I mean, just because I'm taller doesn't mean I should be 'the boy'. You can have that dubious honour."

Knives didn't look very happy about that. "Oh… no thanks. I didn't think you were the boy before, though…"

"Well, most people would. And I'm barely taller, so you can be the boy sometimes, right? Just… I don't know, this isn't really my thing."

"I _don't_ want to be the _boy,_ " she repeated… and there was something new in her tone. Bitterness. Not a lot, and it might just have been anger that came out sounding different because she was not a person who was used to being angry at her friends. But it certainly sounded like that. Either way, any idiot could tell she was dead serious in a way I was not used to hearing Knives be serious.

"Uhhh, yeah, forget it," I said, still blinking and trying to get my brain and my mouth to sync up. "Sorry."

"Good," she sighed, then walked a little closer so that she nudged me. "And it's okay, just not really interested. Anyway, isn't the whole point of us being friends and, um, making out that we can both be girls? Since the whole reason we kissed the first time was we got drunk and started talking about how terrible guys can be sometimes."

"That's true." But I still felt like I should be apologising even more than I already did. And had no idea why. But she got her next words out before I could find my courage; was probably hiding down in my liver or something.

"Dooooo you wanna make out a little tonight?"

My immediate response was "NO!" But when Knives only blinked at me, I squirmed. "Ugh. Fine, we'll see how I feel when we get there."

And once I got there, I did feel like it. Not at first, because my heart was pounding and my forehead sweating, even just while talking to Knives about some guy who tried to get her to buy him a bag of chips in exchange for a "rare" American nickel. It was stupid; I was trying to convince myself that we could just be friends, and yet all I could focus on was the kiss from the playground, how nice her weight had felt in my arms, how soft and perfect she was. Like a druggie getting that first hit.

"...and nobody ever saw her again," she sighed. "But stray cats are pretty common, I guess. Still feel bad."

"Yeah," I sighed, lounging back against the chair, legs dangling off the side. Knives was on the couch, but still curled up very neatly in the corner closest to me, legs tucked under her. Most of her glass of juice was gone, and my water. It had been a while.

Seemed she had either run out of stuff to talk about, or she noticed I was having trouble focusing on her random stories, because her arm lifted until she could poke the freckle on my toe. "Cute."

"Right," I laughed, kicking at her. She grinned and looked down at her knees. "Like there's any part of you that's _not_ cute."

A half-second later, I was slapping my hand over my mouth. Knives blinked at me, obviously flattered, and I wanted to turn into goo and seep down into the chair seat and disappear… but before my embarrassment could make my cheeks more than a shade or two darker, her smile came over bittersweet.

"Oh… there's at least one, right? Nobody's perfect."

"Never said that. You're a pain in the ass. But… a cute one."

Again, the bashful look. "So are you." We both kind of looked into each other's eyes. She swallowed, I sat up a little straighter.

"Knives?"

"Yeah?"

"Go home. It's pretty late, and we both have work in the morning."

A little disappointed, she sighed and got up from the couch. I walked her over, leaned against the door jamb while she put her shoes back on and grabbed her bag. Then she shouldered it and smiled up at me.

And I kissed her. _Sober_ me, this time knowing full well that it wasn't a dream, without adrenaline from a near-fall, pulled Knives Chau in for a lip-lock, running my fingers through her hair, and feeling her turn into putty in my hands. It didn't last for more than a minute, maybe two, but by the end of it we were both gasping for air and smiling.

"Wooooow," she breathed.

"Yeah, wow. Get out."

That only made her smile, leaning up to leave a tiny peck on my chin. Then she whispered, "Text you when I get there" before heading out into the night.

 _To Be Continued…_


	10. Chapter 10

NOTE: Guess what, everybody? This might be the first time I've ever had the chance to do this: I'm posting this chapter ON LOCATION! Yep, I'm currently in Toronto, Ontario, about to head back out into the city for more exploration. Who knows? Maybe I'll bump into Kim and Knives!

Also, Sorry about the cliffhanger/teaser at the end, but I'll get the next one up soon, I promise!

* * *

CHAPTER TEN

I didn't call or text Knives back the next day. Probably made her feel bad… or maybe not. Can't always tell how she thinks.

Problem was, I needed time to recover. Any college girl can tell you that there's a huge difference between a sloppy, drunken make-out session, and _actually_ kissing a girl you're semi-interested in. Twice. In the same day. God, did I like her… which surprised me a lot more than it should have, given how cavity-inducingly sweet she is. Guess I was just used to hating everybody and everything, so anything that messed with that status quo was going to be regarded with heavy skepticism until I felt like I could trust it.

But she seemed to understand, because I didn't get a bunch of sappy texts or selfies of her making kissy-faces or whatever. She only texted once that night, and once the next day just to say "So I have this cute redhead's number ; )". Which made me roll my eyes, but I'm pretty sure a customer heard me giggle.

He must be destroyed. No one can know.

The day after that, I texted her a single word: "Bored." Less than a minute later, she was racing into the video store, blue paisley scarf around her neck soaked in sweat and a light smoke coming from the soles of her running shoes.

"What took you so long?"

"Sorry!" she panted, hands on her knees. "I… stopped to breathe!"

"Dude. Kidding." Something weird came over me; I got up from my chair and gestured for her to sit and recover from obviously sprinting all the way here. Was I putting someone else's needs before my own? What the hell?

When I came back from getting a glass of water from the back, she looked way more calm and relaxed, though she still accepted the glass gratefully and chugged it. "PWAH!" she gasped when it was empty. "Thanks!"

"Sure."

Setting it down, she turned to smile up at me. "Watch a movie? You pick again."

"We could make out," I suggested in a deadpan voice.

"I'm all sweaty and gross. You probably don't w-"

My lips cut hers off. Seriously, I don't know what I was turning into; maybe it had just been so long since I let anybody in that all that pent-up "relationship energy" was bursting to get out and do something for once. Maybe she was just a great kisser. All roads led to Snogtown, anyway.

When I pulled back, I wrinkled my nose. "Yeah, you are pretty sweaty. But you don't stink or whatever; just have that… you know. The salty smell."

"The wha…?" She was clearly still a little dazed from the kiss.

"That salty skin-smell of someone who just started working out. Not like, old gross sweat, but fresh, clean…" I fell silent. How did she keep getting me to talk more than I normally would? The whole reason I didn't say much was because I didn't want to sound stupid, which I felt like I was a lot more lately. Being stoic was a defense mechanism, I don't need a shrink to tell me that.

Not that Knives cared. Lucky for me, she never cared when I sounded dumb. "Oh," she said with a slight nod. "Yeah, I know what you mean, kinda. Never really thought about it before."

"Right. Anyway… I dunno what to watch. We have a French film that sounded kinda interesting."

"I don't speak French very well," she snorted.

"Mine's pretty rusty, too. But there's subtitles."

"Cool."

So I put it on. And this time, the experience of watching a movie with Knives was totally different. I mean, not that much different from before, because the oddly comfortable silence was still there. Her comments were about the same as they would have been before. There was just… I dunno. Holding hands and kissing, snuggling slightly — once her sweat evaporated a little, of course.

I had a girlfriend. A fucking _girlfriend._ It was really starting to hit me, and every time it did, I felt my face getting warmer. Apropos of nothing! Just thinking about that being what Knives was to me now was impossible enough that it made me embarrassed without any specific event to trigger that reaction. Even just this, holding her close while we sat through some sappy avant-garde piece that made me roll my eyes with every scene, watching her nibble at a bag of Skittles she found in her purse… not even kissing very often because we were still awkward, shy nerds… yeah. Was off the beaten path for me, something I hadn't felt in forever.

What the hell did she see in me? Still no idea. But she seemed to think I was "nice" and "cool", or whatever.

After the movie, we went around the corner into Honest Ed's for some lazy window-shopping. Ordered some Chinese and went back to my place, talking while we ate. Mario Party for a while. We kept nudging each other and threatening not to kiss the other person if we lost… well, the second one was mostly me, but yeah.

The best way to describe it was that it was what I needed. Basically _everything_ I'd needed but didn't want to admit to needing.

"You're such a cheater."

"I am not!" she cried out as she shut the Nintendo off, pouting a little. But I was beginning to learn the difference between when she was just pouting and legitimately hurt or sad; I always felt this deeply-buried desire to hug her either way, but it was easier to ignore when it was nothing serious. "Like, it's my game, of course I'm gonna be better at it. You're out of practice."

"Oh, stop trying to make me feel better." But I was already smiling a little. _Just a little,_ though. "You really don't mind leaving this here?"

"Nah. It's nice having somewhere to hang that's not in my parents' house. Like, you probably get me."

Nodding, I helped her wrap the cords around the claw-like controllers as we nipped it away for the night. "Yep. Cramp your style no matter how old you are."

"In fact… I could, um, sleep over? Not tonight, and not for, um…" The way her eyes looked away, I didn't even have to guess what she was trying to say. "But just to play a board of 50 turns, and have breakfast together, I guess. Is that dumb?"

"Pretty dumb." But I felt bad instantly, so I added, "That you thought you had to ask. But this place is tiny; it'll probably be super uncomfortable."

Her pout turned into a grin. "Nah. I like your couch. And um, your bathroom's not bad, just sucks you don't have a legit bathtub. Though the shower stall is pretty roomy."

"Why, do you wanna shower together?"

The minute I said it, I could tell it was going to send _both_ of us into fits. And I was right. Of course, my fit was basically just me facepalming and holding my hand there until my blush subsided. Knives kind of let out a strangled squeal, then flopped onto her back and rolled around for a few seconds. When we both recovered, we kind of glanced at each other, then away, then back again.

"Y-yeah. Maybe. I mean, I know you're probably kind of curious about my body…"

"Wow, listen to this self-confidence." Her red cheeks made me want to kiss them. So I did, and she gasped very quietly. "Man, this is weird."

"I'm curious about yours, too, though," she admitted very softly. It was so shy that I couldn't even tease her about it without feeling like some kind of puppy-kicker.

"Well… I think if I tried either one right now, I'd explode, so… we can kinda put a pin in that."

"Sure!" she agreed instantly, and the sheer relief in her voice told me it was the right plan. "I don't want you to explode into coins!"

Snorting, I started pushing up from the floor. "Didn't mean like that; just _figuratively_ explode. But good to know."

Walking her to the door felt even more different now than it did the last time. My _date._ My girlfriend, Knives Chau, who was walking extra slow so she could spend more time with me. Everything was the same, but everything _felt_ different. Pretty lame. We kissed, and it was longer, sweeter. With her shoes on, we were closer to the same height… I don't know why I noticed that. But she still leaned up to kiss me. Complete with one foot popping up and everything, like in some classic silver screen romance.

Around the time we started getting hotter and heavier, and I kind of naturally started poking at her lips with my tongue, she pulled back with a sudden gasp and a shiver. "Ooh… mm, wow, Kim…"

"Shit."

"S-so I'll see you tomorrow?" She suddenly seemed to be in a hurry. As if hanging around with me would keep her from leaving. Which might have been true, actually; I knew I was starting to feel an inclination toward trapping her in that apartment and never letting her leave.

"Hell yeah, tomorrow."

~ o ~

It snuck up on me. Like, for some reason I was thinking "twenty-four hours", and it was more like sixteen or something. Because she had to work, so this time she didn't drop in on me during my shift, but around the time I got off she was right there out front, wearing a cute tank top, skirt that came to her knees, and strappy sandals, bags packed and grin in place. Ready to go.

"Are you moving in or something?" I demanded, having taken one of the bags to help carry them to the bus stop. "What the fuck?"

"I brought my Ninja Ninja Revolution pads! You're in a basement flat, right? No downstairs neighbours… we can stomp around all we want!"

My eyes just deadpan glared. "Ninja Ninja Revolution. I don't really play… I mean, I barely ever…" But her earnest grin made me roll my eyes and grunt, "Fine."

"Plus I got hair dye and nail polish and face masks and all that stuff if you wanna get super girly." At my scowl deepening, she added, "Or not! We don't have to use any of it!"

"You'd paint my nails some horrible Dayglo green."

"Nuh-uh! Like, forest-green. It would complement your hair. But I could do black or like, an electric blue maybe? Or just a clear-coat with sparkles…"

That topic lasted most of the way home, with her off on a tangent without me having to contribute much other than stubbornly refusing to accept that this inevitable course of events was going to eventually catch up with me. Ah well… it was only one night.

Or was it? This was getting a lot more serious a lot faster than I had anticipated. And if I had known what would happen later that evening, I'd probably have thrown both hands up in the air and realised that my life was never in my control to begin with.

Luckily for everyone involved, I had no clue.

 _To Be Continued…_


	11. Chapter 11

NOTE: Literally sitting in what _used_ to be the Second Cup location from the movie right now! It's since become an espresso bar, so at least I could get some kind of coffee-related drink (really wanted to tell them my name was "Fucking Pilgrim" when they asked). I've been enjoying this trip, and all the fun stuff I got to see; drove past the Pizza Pizza where they got a slice after Scott beat up Todd, and Sneaky Dee's (comic-only reference). I'm really hoping I can see Casa Loma and a few other Pilgrim-landmarks before I head home.

This chapter has another cliffhanger, but we're getting into the meat of the story now. Plus, there's a little extra something for Flyafar in here somewhere, hehehehe.

* * *

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"...So then I said, 'that's the only kind of cheese you know, isn't it?'" Knives giggled as she finished putting the clear coat on top of my fingernails. The whole time, I looked very distinctly disgruntled at the whole situation, though I couldn't scowl nearly as much as usual with the face mask on. "But the guy had no idea what I was talking about. Some people are just really super dumb, huh?"

"Some people, present company included." She stuck out her tongue, showing just how well she was adapting to my general demeanor. "Can we take these off yet?"

"Almost. And I'll get yours so your nails can dry."

"Thanks." She leaned in to peck my lips, and I just barely managed to suppress the instinct to flinch. "U-uh…"

Her little sigh of contentment was so cute. Which made it even funnier that what she said next was, "So cute." Then she blew on my nails for a second before reaching up to her own face, and slowly peeling the mask down and off. "Eeewww… okay, ready?"

"As I'll ever be." She grabbed a corner and began to peel it off, and I shivered; it was so _cold_ and gross-feeling! Why did people do this to themselves?

Once she jumped up and threw both of ours away, little aluminum foil pieces bobbing in front of her forehead, I tried not to watch her ass as she went. Why did I care about that all of a sudden? Never once could I remember looking at a girl's ass and thinking "Oh yeah, I'd do something to that." Especially since I had no idea what the "something" was! Spank it? Bite it? Use it as a coffee table? No idea. I never checked out guys' butts, either. Maybe I was seriously repressed and Knives was uncorking a whole bottle of desire I didn't even know I owned. And when I say "maybe", I mean "probably".

When Knives got back into my living room, she came to a stop and towered above me as she asked, "So, I do have to shower soon and get this dye out of my hair. But I can keep you company while your nails dry."

"They're almost done," I told her dismissively, determined not to think too hard about Knives being naked in my apartment. No, to _not_ think about it. NOT to THINK ABOUT IT, stupid pervy brain! "You can go on if you want; nobody likes an itchy, burning scalp."

"Cool. And then we can finish everything up! I want to do your toes before we go to bed, at least, and put on that movie you brought."

"I bet you want to _do_ my toes," I tried to tease her. "Already said you think they're cute."

Her grin was very playful. Sometimes she was super easy to tease, and sometimes she just danced right past my traps. How annoying. "The freckled one is. And I guess her little friends are, too." Her foot nudged mine, and I shivered, not even sure why I was shivering. "But I think all of you is cute, so…"

"Well, I think none of you is cute. All of you is dumb. Dumb face, dumb head…" This time, she was the one to roll her eyes and walk away, though she was giggling as she went.

While my new girlfriend showered, I mostly just tried not to ruin my fresh coat of paint and sat there, listening to the music still playing from her iPod. This was nice. Goddamn everything, I wanted to hate getting all girly with her, but she was making it fun. And to be honest, even though she was _way_ girlier than me, it wasn't to the disgusting heights of a typical "sorority bimbo". This was about the maximum level of femininity I could handle invading my androgynous zone.

Get it? _Androgynous zone_. That's a pun.

When she came out of the bathroom roughly an hour after going in, freshly showered and in fuzzy PJs with cartoony cats patterned all over them, she caught me trying to eat the last slice of Pizza Pizza without touching anything with my fingernails. Her laugh was beautiful and earnest, and it kept me from snapping at her as harshly as I wanted to.

"Shut up, I got hungry!" More giggles. "Okay, okay, how was your shower? The hair looks pretty good."

Her fingers traced through the damp red forelock. "Thanks! I dunno, I tried going back to being totally natural but I missed the dyed part. And I guess I got over the whole thing about resenting Ramona, since… I got somebody better than Scott in the end."

"Y- I…" My words crashed into each other and wound up a tangled mess, and my freckles turned darker as she leaned in to kiss my blushing cheek. Then she licked it. "WHAT?! Why would you do that?!"

"Pizza sauce."

"O-oh… thanks, I think." Another giggle, and this time I laughed, as well. "Guess I made a mess trying not to make a mess of my nails."

"They look great! Just have to finish the rest."

"Yeah, okay, as long as we can put on some bad TV in the background."

So that's exactly what we did next. I rested my feet in her cross-legged lap, and she painted while _Friends_ blared in the background. God, I hate that show, but she loves it. At least it was something for her to be entertained by, and I could entertain myself by ripping it to shreds whenever possible.

Especially Ross. Fucking Ross, man…

Around the time she was finishing up mine and we were getting ready to switch, she asked, "What would it have been like if we met in school?"

"You mean, like, if I was nineteen, or you were twenty-four? We did both go to a Catholic school…"

"We DID?!" she piped up, flicking a tiny drip of the dark green paint onto my ankle. But my glare was unnecessary, because she wiped it up with a facial tissue right away. "Oh yeah, I think you mentioned it… I just wasn't thinking about it that way. Wow, so cool!"

"Yeah, it's fabulous," I sighed in a deadpan.

"But sure, that." She blew on the nails for a second, then kissed my toe-freckle. I don't know why, but even though I really wanted to kick at her and tell her to cut that out, instead I just felt faintly embarrassed and kept my mouth shut. "What if you were a girl in my class? Then like, we could have hung out all the time, and talked about boys…"

My smirk was quite dark as I let my legs down over the side, and she offered me the jars of the polish we had used on her fingernails earlier in the evening. Bright red, to match her hair. "We don't seem to care much about boys, dude."

"Not _now,_ " she clarified with a huge grin as her feet landed in my lap. "But both of us were extra straight then. Or like, I was, and you probably were, too. Since I'm the first girl for you."

"Who says? Maybe I really did have a threesome with Scott and Ramona." But her stunned look didn't last long, because I set to painting as I grumbled, "Fine, fine. I didn't. But yeah… I dunno. Probably wouldn't have hung out with you back then since you weren't very 'cool'. And I was still angsty, and just wanted to play the drums. Funny how you can think you're so awesome and when you look back a few years later, realise you were just a whiny little bitch."

Frowning, she told me, "Don't say that. You were a kid. So was I in high school, doing theater and band and stuff. Before you guys helped me grow up some. I mean, my school days were more recent for me but I think it's pretty much the same thing."

"It is," I admitted, even though the High School Kim part of my brain was screaming that it was _totally different_ and that I was a _sellout_ and all this other crap. She needed to chill. "But for what it's worth… you weren't that bad. I just didn't want a groupie hanging around while we practiced."

"You mean that?"

"Yeah. Nothing personal. I didn't like Ramona much at first, either."

"Well… we were dating Scott. I mean, I've been dumped by him, I get it."

"No, you don't. He wasn't the first one you ever…" I bit my lip. "Look. It is the same, and it's not. Sorry if I act kind of salty about this sometimes."

The foot that hadn't been painted yet nudged my tummy to get my attention, and I looked up to see real sympathy in her eyes. Even though I was kind of being a dick. "It's okay."

"Sorry… I'm really sorry, Knives." Clearing my throat, I redipped the brush and went back to work. "You're right, we're both members of the Scott Pilgrim Lonely Hearts Club. I shouldn't split hairs."

"What was it like? Being with a guy. I mean, I never got that far."

"Like being fucked," I said bluntly, and she snorted. My serious expression finally softened as I spared her a glance. "I mean, you've gone a solo round before, right? Not that different from fingering yourself."

"Well… not really." She seemed extra awkward about this question. Not that I got why; maybe she was just shy about admitting this. But it's no big deal, only masturbation talk. Whole world does it, right? 'She bop, he bop, and we bop', to quote Lauper. "Tried some stuff. And it wouldn't be the same thing you experienced, that's for sure."

Nodding, I finished the first set of five toes off and moved to the second. "Guess everybody's different."

"And now, I might never know, since I kinda hope…"

I waited for a few seconds. When she didn't finish, I froze for a second as what she had been leading to caught up to me, and I sat up straighter, looking her in the eyes. Yeah, that was definitely what I thought it was, because she looked a little mortified, and highly self-conscious.

"You were gonna say something sappy about me, weren't you?"

"Noooo…"

"Are you lying?"

"Maaaaaybe," she admitted, wilting. "Sorry, Kim. I know, I know! It's new, and we're just, like, giving it a trial run or whatever, but I can't help it."

Swallowing down the weird, giddy noise that tried to erupt from my throat, I coughed, then said, "W-well… I guess it feels pretty good when you say stuff like that. Just a little frightening, too. And nauseating. It's a lot to process."

"What's to process? I like you."

"That! THAT is a lot to process for me! Why? And how can you when I'm not gay?"

"Okay, pretty sure you're a _little_ gay," she giggled, and I sighed in defeat as I facepalmed yet again. "Sorry to break it to you, friend."

A little disgruntled at how she kept laughing at me, I went back to finishing the paint job. "Very little. Like, point-one per cent. And you're a little bit of a cunt for rubbing it in."

"What's to rub in? Being gay isn't an insult."

"Yeah, but it still feels like one since until you started trying to make out with me all the time, I figured I was straight. And I'm used to fucktards calling me 'dyke' just because I don't giggle and flirt back when guys tell me 'duuude, redheads are hoooot, broooo'. So yeah, for me, being called a lesbian mostly used to be a way for them to insult me and make themselves feel better that I shot them the fuck down."

"Redheads are pretty hot, though," she said with a nod, completely serious. I nearly messed up her pinky toe because of that, but I kept my cool and finished it, then began blowing on them to get them to dry as fast as possible so I could be done.

"We burn in the sun, and we have no souls. Plus some people call freckles 'cute' but they don't really get how annoying they are. And then there's the part where bleaching my hair to turn it any colour _other than red_ just looks horrible, so I'm kinda stuck with it."

Frowning very slightly, she said, "Aww, but I like your freckles. You might not but I really do think they're cute."

"You think _one_ freckle is cute, and it's a weird one. Feet aren't cute, end of story." I was still trying to blow on them again when Knives pushed her big toe into my lips, cutting off the airflow.

"Don't you think mine are cute?" I pulled away, sputtering and spitting. "Guess not."

"UGH! Why would you _do_ that?! They're dirty!"

"I just had a shower! Literally just now!" she protested as I wiped my arm across my lips. "Careful, your fingernails-!"

"God, sometimes I really don't know what you're thinking…" But it really hadn't been that big of a deal, so I went back to checking her nails again. "And you're dry. I'm ready for my clear coat."

Again, we switched laps, and she started in with my top coat. After she got the first few done, she said in a quiet voice, "Sorry, I guess that was dumb."

"It was dumb. But yeah, I didn't mean to flip out that much." We were both quiet for a moment. Maybe I really had hurt her by overreacting. "Okay, so your feet are cute, as far as any feet can be in the first place. Happy?"

"Mmmm…" Now she was thinking it over, and I had a feeling I wasn't going to get off that light. "Tell me something else about me that's cute."

"Your ass. There."

"Kiiiiiiim," she whined.

"Your face! That little button nose, your soft, dark eyes, your giant smile that belongs on a much bigger face than yours! Jesus H. Benjamin Christ!"

That got her smiling again, and I rolled my eyes. But I wasn't lying. For a second, I thought she was going to gloat, but instead she simply raised my foot and pressed her lips into my big toe, kissing it for a lot longer than I had accidentally kissed hers. She even closed her eyes while doing it, as if she were enjoying herself. Crazy, right?

"Same. Like, you're the hottest girl I know! I thought you were way out of my league. And I mean like, after we made out; before that, I just kinda looked up to you in a weird, awkward way. But after…"

Just barely starting to get over her kissing me _there_ of all places, I stammered, "Wait… h-have you had a crush on me since that night? Seriously?"

"No! I mean, a little? But not like, in the way that I was hanging around you and hoping this would happen. Because I never believed it could. But yeah, I, um… you were so sweet and understanding, it was a whole other side of you. Always kinda hoped I'd get to know you better, just as a friend. Ever since that night."

' _Yeah, one I can't remember,'_ I scoffed to myself. But she didn't need to hear that. Glancing away at the TV, I tried to process that for a minute. At least this hadn't been some long, elaborate ruse just to get into my pants; I could appreciate that a lot more than if it were. On the other hand, it was kinda sad. Knives saw potential in us as a couple long before I did, and it felt off-balance. Wrong.

Maybe I needed to step up my girlfriend-game to make up for that. Not that I had any idea how.

"You deserve better."

"Don't do that thing," she warned me with a little purse of her lips.

"Fine, I won't. But you do." And I let it go at that.

All nails were painted and clear-coated, and I got off without having to match Knives in her toe-kissing intensity. Which was great, because… no thanks. Trying to do better in the dating department than just playing Super Smash Bros. and being an asshole, I let her be the little spoon and recline against me as we lounged and watched an old _DuckTales_ VHS, barely talking and mostly just enjoying that closeness. The feeling of legs against my own, warm bodies close together, was… weird. Like a preview of what it would be like sleeping next to her someday? I don't know.

Finally, she yawned and I agreed that it was getting late. "I'll make up the couch while you brush your teeth or whatever."

"Okay. Yeah, I have a whole ritual; it takes a little longer than yours, of course."

"Of course," I scoffed with sarcasm. Not that I was sure what she meant. "Go for it."

Once I had a sheet down on the cushions, I nodded to myself and sighed, then looked around and started clearing away some of the food-related trash. Then I moved her suitcase — what was _in_ that thing?! — and got my living room as ready to be a bedroom as it was ever gonna be. Was I really going to dote so much now that we were sorta-kinda together? It boggled the mind.

Decked out in my own PJs, which were more like just a ratty tee and sporty shorts, I heard the toilet flush. After a second, I went to knock on the bathroom door. "Knives?"

"Yeah?"

Pushing it open, I started asking, "Do you sleep with the light on or…"

We both froze. It wasn't that she was naked or anything; she wasn't. Her underwear was on, and so was her top, but her PJ pants were down to her knees and she was seated on the toilet, lid closed. That wasn't the problem. It was the hypodermic needle she had stabbed into her thigh.

"Off, usually; though I have a Keroppi night light from when I was little that I leave on in case I have to get up to pee. Forgot to bring it, though."

 _What the fuck?!_

 _To Be Continued…_


	12. Chapter 12

WARNING (containing mild spoilers): This chapter is somewhat NSFW. Fairly explicit without going into a lot of detail. Also involving underage drinking and drunken almost-sex.

NOTE: Finally, the rest of the memory. Sorry for this chapter taking a little longer to get out than the last two, but I was working on some other projects. Before posting this, I also went back and edited the first 11 chapters to make one or two tiny things about Toronto more accurate; was kind of fun, even if it delayed the posting of this next installment.

Also yes, that is a Bleach reference.

* * *

CHAPTER TWELVE

This had to be a nightmare. I felt myself beginning to freak out as I glanced between her innocent eyes and the bizarre sight going on down in her lap. Then, as I kept glancing… I started to realise that she wasn't asking more questions. Wasn't moving at all.

Glancing over head, I saw the "PAUSE" had returned, just where I expected. It barely fit in my bathroom.

For a second, I started to turn around and go pace in the living room for a second. But then I thought… no. No, I wasn't having this; it wasn't _me_ who needed to worry about being embarrassed, or having something to hide. I wasn't going to get anywhere by standing around and not confronting the issue. So I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm my breathing, and then smacked the Pause to make it vanish.

"Kim?" Knives asked a moment later. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, I don't know," I burst out, gesturing to the needle. "Gee, what could it be?"

"Um…" She looked a little self-conscious about that, but didn't back down as much as I expected. "Sorry, I thought the door was locked. Some people get pretty queasy about needles, and I didn't know…"

"Lock's broken. And hey, _so_ not the issue right now, Chau."

"What?" After a second, she tried again, eyebrows starting to contract together as she watched me running my fingers through my hair. "Come on, you're starting to freak me out."

"YOU'RE freaked out! I'm staring at my friend, doing… I mean, what even is this? What are you on? Like, heroin or something?"

"Uhhh, these are my hormones. Are you sure you're okay? You look kinda… sick or something, I dunno."

That brought me up short, taking away some of my building rage. "Hormones? Wait… I don't understand."

"Ha, ha," she sighed with a little frown. "It's not really funny when it's about this, Kim."

"What is 'this'?! I'm standing here, staring at an episode of _Law And Order_ and you're being an evasive little douche!"

"You know." I shook my head. " _You don't know?"_

"No. What, do you have some kind of… glandular condition?"

Not totally sure what she had been thinking before, but it was only at that point that she drew back in mild shock. Then she glanced down at her thigh, up at me, and slowly swallowed. "Oh… um… but wait, there's no _way_ you don't know. Not after Julie's aunt's house."

"What? Don't be weird, this isn't-" Sighing in irritation, I slammed my hand into the sink, and she jumped slightly. "Cut the shit! If you told me that you have to _stab yourself in the leg_ for some condition, I'd remember that! So if you're lying-"

"Omigosh. You really don't remember. Any of it." She both looked shocked and disappointed. Then she looked down at her leg again, and back up at me. "Okay. Um… can you give me a couple minutes? This is pretty uncomfortable."

Beside myself, I wandered back out into the hallway, propping up the wall with my shoulder. What else was I supposed to do? She was being so calm that it started making me feel like the weird one for flipping my lid. And maybe I was. Sure, it looked like she was some drug addict, but of all the friends I'd had in my life, Knives was probably the one I would suspect of being hopped up on anything the least. Anything besides too much sugar, I mean. The only thing was, if she was just taking birth control or something like that, I'd never heard of anybody who took it by _syringe._ Pills and patches, and even that shove-it-up-your-cunt thing, sure. But this seemed a little out there.

Finally, Knives came out with her kit. Toiletry kit, or drug kit? She stashed everything in her backpack, then went straight to her suitcase.

"Hey, enough. I think I deserve some kind of explanation here. I mean, if you're on something, I have a right to know if you're gonna trash my place or-"

"Just hang on." She reached into the suitcase, pushed on something…

And swung the bottom of it upward, revealing another compartment. Except it was much, _much_ bigger than the inside of the suitcase should have allowed. She fastened the false bottom to the lid of the suitcase, then literally flipped down into what I could only assume was…

"A subspace pocket?!" I squeaked, running to the suitcase to gaze down. There was a room in there, and probably the weirdest collection of crap I've ever seen — and SO many knives. Literally the hugest collection of knives and swords I've ever seen, big and small, plain and ornate, and I could swear one of them kept changing colours. But Knives wasn't even bothering with any of that; she was digging in a steamer trunk in the corner.

And of course there was a huge Oriental rug covering the floor. Everything else in there looked expensive as fuck, so why not?

When I saw her crouching to vault back into my apartment from… wherever, I took a few quick steps back so she could land, one hand falling to the floor to steady her landing. Her other one was out to the side for balance, and wrapped around it was a red fingerless glove.

"Okay, so that's… interesting," I began, still mostly looking at the suitcase. "Seriously, I did start to wonder what you had in there to make it so heav-"

"Can you move like, a foot to the right?" I did. "Little more… take a step back." Why not? I felt the couch cushion pushing into my calves. "Okay, good. Now just… relax and pay attention, and think about that night at Julie's aunt's. It'll all be over in no time, I promise. This is seriously the fastest way."

Blinking when I realised she was falling into some kind of attack stance, I braced myself and only had time to yelp, "HEY!" before she was driving the heel of her gloved palm into my forehead-

~ o ~

Knives was gazing over at me from up against the side of the bed, head rolling in a lazy circle. A drunk hiccup sounded into the room. How did we get there? When did we start drinking? That whole thing was pretty goddamn disorienting, and this is coming from someone who's been pulled through subspace doors and watched people explode into coins.

"Scott's not the problem," someone was saying. Where did that come from? "It's _men._ Fucking… men, and dudes. Can't trust a single one of them."

"Rrrgh," she was growling at me, pointing at me with the neck of the whisky bottle. "I hate them! I _hate_ boys! They're all exactly the same! Same eyes, same hair…"

"I know," I told her… except I _wasn't_ telling her. That was my voice, I felt it coming out of my lips, but I wasn't moving them or telling them to do that. I'm explaining this badly, but I think you get what I mean; someone turned me into a meat puppet for their ventriloquist act. "They _suck."_

While I was still trying to figure that insanity out, I noticed Knives was smiling. Then she let out a little breathless giggle, almost too quiet to hear. Dark eyes in a dark room raised to point at me. "Kim, I… I've kissed the lips that kissed you," she was slurring very gently, leaning closer. And closer still. And then I realised…

 _I've been there before._ This was my memory, wasn't it? We were in Julie's aunt's house by the beach. Knives was wearing that yellow hoodie on top of her swimsuit, we were on the carpet in someone's bedroom. Probably her aunt's kid, maybe just an ownerless guest room, who knows? The whisky bottle was sitting nearby, and we'd already been passing it back and forth. Swapping spit before we…

Lips crashed into mine as a slight weight settled in my lap, and I caught her and kissed back, only letting out a quick little "Mmm" of mild surprise. It had been pretty obvious what her next move would be by that point, but past-me was too drunk to realise. Modern-me, in the harsh light of day… yeah, one of us should have stopped this. We weren't sober, and she was technically too young to be drinking anyway. Bad ideas were everywhere.

I blame Stephen Stills. He thought it was "funny" to get the high schooler sloshed.

My brain was helpless to do anything about the memory that was playing out around me, though so far I didn't mind much. Knives and I were kind of a thing now, right? Nothing wrong with thinking about the first kiss you shared with your girlfriend-ish person. To be honest, this was kind of nice, getting to experience more of it than I could recall. Even if the drunk part was less than ideal.

Knives was really taking control now, pushing me down against the floor. We tangled there for a second before I rolled her over and returned the favour, being just as forceful. This was a lot more tongue than we had used sober, too…

And then I _felt_ it.

And _she_ felt that I had felt it.

"MhhAH!" she gasped out when our lips parted, and she looked startled. "O-oh, I… Kim…"

"What's this down here?" I said with a little giggle, shimmying my hips from side to side. Grinding on my discovery. She blanched, looking ashamed of herself. "Somebody's got a little _surprise package delivery."_

"Kim, I'm sorry!" The way her breathing was shallow and her arm raised, then flopped back down, told me she didn't have the power to push me off. This was a _disaster._ "Is it… is it gross to you?"

"Your body decided it's… _happy hour._ Get it?"

Eyes darting away from mine, she whispered, "Sorry, I didn't… expect to… o-or I would have told you… I guess…" She was _terrified._ Drunk-Kim didn't seem to care much, but the me of today was practically screaming at my past self to slow the fuck down and THINK for a half-second. This was bad! Not just a little bad, but _potential lawsuit_ bad!

"It's kinda small," Drunk-Kim observed, still grinding up and down against the unexpected presence. "Li'l bitty egg roll." Now _that_ was just stupid and vaguely racist. Seriously, past-drunk-me? You're better than that and we both know it. Plus I was kind of insulting Knives by calling it small.

"Well, it- I didn't know it was…"

"It's okay. Ooh, now it's getting bigger…" My hand was drifting down past her hip, and her eyes shot open. Apparently, there were limits to how oblivious drunk-me was. "Can I? Just wanna play with it…"

There was a slight nod, and I raised my hips enough so that my hand could wrap around her bulge through her swimsuit. She was drunk! I mean, so was I, but… someone, _anyone_ needed to walk in on us and stop me from doing this. Stop the alcohol-fuelled boundary-breaching.

"Can I look? Put it in my mouth or somethin'?" I asked after a little while. This time, she shook her head, and I pouted. "Aww…"

"I don't want… anybody to see…"

"Okay," I said with a put-upon sigh, as if she'd spoiled my fun. This entire time, I wanted to cringe, or close my eyes, but it was no longer possible. Not in this weird memory-dream I was trapped in. But at least I didn't have to live with knowing I had ignored her when she asked me to stop; that would have _destroyed_ me.

My hand began to stroke her through the multiple layers of water-friendly fabric, and Knives's eyes slid closed as she sucked in a breath. "How about just this? 'Zat okay?" A long moan flowed from her as I teased.

"Kim…!"

"You like this? Huh? Like it when I do to you what I did to… Scott and those other guys."

"B-but I'm not a guy," she insisted, then flinched when I dug my nails in, hissing from the mild pain. And I swore that whisky was now off my list of acceptable spirits then and there, because this was _really_ too far.

"This feels like you are." OH MY GOD, KIM, SHUT THE FUCK UP. "But yeah… guess you're definitely a girl. Just one with something special. I sure as hell don't have one."

Better. A little.

"Kim, you're really… making me…" She bit her lip, and I felt her begin to thrust with me, moving her hips along with my hand.

"Good, right? It's good?" I knew that my drunk self really did want her to tell me. Even though she might not have stopped _completely_ if Knives said "no", but just started asking what _would_ make her feel good, it was better than not asking at all. Small silver linings.

After another minute or whatever, she began to pant, "I… I'm gonna… b-but I'm in my swimsuit!"

"You said you didn't want to be set free," I giggled.

"I don't! Please? D-don't look, I really don't want you to!"

My cheeks stopped bunching from my sadistic grin, and I leaned down to kiss her cheek. "It's okay. I won't look, I'll just… keep this up. We can wash it in the morning." My hand went faster. "Come for me. I wanna see that 'O' face, Knives… never seen a chick with a dick make one, and I wanna know."

Idly, I wondered if this memory was as mortifying and embarrassing for Knives as it was for me. If I ever lived this down, I swore that I would not only give up whisky, but take a close look at how my brain works. Something was wrong in there…

By the time I got Knives to come, she was pushing one hand into her mouth to keep her noises down, and her legs were completely open, letting me do whatever I wanted. And luckily for my conscience… I did exactly what I said I would do. Stroked her through the swimsuit until she came, and I could tell it was a pretty decent climax just from watching her face, hearing her breath hitch. Even without feeling her _throb_ down below. A slight warmth began to gather around my thumb and index finger as I stroked, and I let out a giggle.

"Mmm… Knives… you came. So squishy." No response as I played idly with the thick substance that was dampening her swimsuit. "Was it fun for you? Did you like coming for me?"

"Mmm," was all she could say, eyes glazed over.

"Knives? Hey." Her eyes focused on me. "I had fun."

Only then did she spare me the tiniest of nervous smiles. "Um… I d-did, too. Sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" I sighed, wrapping my body around hers and settling in. Basking and snuggling, like we hadn't done anything as intense as we had, and weirdly disinterested in having her return the favour. If I were sober, I'd definitely have at least done that!

"For not telling you… I promised myself I would, if anybody ever got this close to… w-well, kinda didn't expect _you,_ of all the people I know…" Her words continued to be a little sloppy, but she did embrace me back, at least. "Anyway… th-thanks for not… freaking out."

How could I have freaked out? Drunk-Kim was wasted and didn't care, more or less. Mildly curious and amused by the whole situation. "Shhh, it's cool. Just don't worry so much, man…"

Even while she was saying, "You sure?" I could see the room growing dim. It took me a minute to figure out that past-me was closing her eyes. Falling asleep, right after doing that! "M'glad."

"Right."

"Thank you," she gushed. I couldn't see her anymore, but could hear the tears in her voice. "I can't tell you… like, this is so awesome of you, I really…"

"Yeah, yeah."

And then everything turned black and quiet.

 _To Be Continued…_


	13. Chapter 13

NOTE: All the details about Knives come out in this one. Huzzah! (I guess) I'm really glad people have been liking it; I know that every time I branch out into a new fandom that I can't know how the fic will be received, or even if there's anyone left in that fandom to read what I've written. But yay, there are still Scott Pilgrim fans in the world!

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When I woke up, I was laying on the couch, tucked into the sheets that I'd prepared for Knives to sleep there. It was morning. Seriously, guess it took all night for me to go through that memory. Sitting forward, I groaned and gripped my head. Worst hangover ever, and I wasn't even drinking!

A couple of minutes went past as I tried to figure out if what I had seen was a dream, or what. Probably not a dream. It could have been, I guess, but I was a lot more certain that it was just a repressed drunken memory. Either because it was too hard to accept what I had seen and found out, and _done,_ or just that the drunken state made my long-term memory conveniently 'forget' to retain those details.

And MAN were those some details that it left out.

"Knives?" I croaked, my throat dry. This was going to take a lot of thinking, and talking. I stood up to go make a pot of coffee before we got started-

And tripped over her body on the floor. Suddenly, she was a writhing, clawing mess, trying to attack me. There were a few seconds of frantic confusion before we finally were still, staring into each other's eyes.

"OH! Kim, I'm… good morning!" A long, slow sigh of relief. "God…"

"Shit, sorry," I muttered as we broke apart, catching our breath. "I didn't see you… why were you on the floor like that?"

Rubbing at her eyes, she said, "It felt too weird using your bed, and I didn't wanna move you, either. So I just… grabbed the other throw pillow and slept down here."

"Right. Makes sense." When she looked up again, I looked away. "So, um… so I guess we went a lot farther that night than I remembered."

"Huh? Oh… OH, right, the memory! It worked?"

My eyes narrowed at her as I slowly struggled to my feet. "Uh, yeah. You didn't _know_ it would work?"

"My dad promised it would, and he's pretty smart about stuff like this." Her hair fell to one side, and her face got a little more guarded. "So… you really didn't remember before I used the glove?"

"Remember what? That you're a…" Luckily, I hesitated as I tried to find the right word, because I saw Knives bracing herself. As if she expected to be _hurt._ How bad was I that I'd made her feel that way before? "A little different?" I finished up, hoping that was safer than some of the other words I almost chose.

It worked. Knives sighed in relief. "Yeah. You, um, seemed okay with it since we started hanging out, but I didn't realise that was because you completely forgot."

"Yeah! Funny how those things are like, really similar!" We both shared a nervous laugh, and it died, and then we were staring at each other. After a second or two, I cleared my throat and started to comment on it. Say that it was okay that she was the way she was, that I didn't have a problem. But all of that sounded stupid; who cared if I had a problem? She was who she was with or without my 'approval'. I just didn't know what to say instead of that.

"So… I take injections in my thighs," she continued, as if we had only paused for a few seconds the night before for her to explain, then continued the conversation. "Kinda move it around so the bruising — sometimes there's bruising — doesn't all hit the same area. I tried stabbing myself in the butt once, and I like sitting down too much."

Smiling weakly, I asked, "In the butt, huh? Wild."

"Yeah. And it's not every day, it's once a week, but like… just bad timing my day was while I was crashing here," she lamented, looking down and away. "Sorry you had to find out like that. I mean, find out again."

"No, I'm sorry I forgot. Like damn, that's a major life status reveal, and I'm too drunk to hang onto it? No more whisky." Seriously, I meant to follow through on my promise to myself.

"So… we're okay?"

"What? Oh, sure. Yeah."

"Really?"

My feet turned and took me into the kitchen to begin making that coffee. "Yeah, Knives. Like… I don't really know what else to say about it, but I'm not… I don't think you're…" One more shot. "I like you."

"Good," she said, trailing in behind me. "But you still act freaked."

"I am. Like, I'm really surprised; you look so cute, and girly, and… I had zero idea that anything down there would be… atypical. No reason to suspect you were anything except Knives Chau, random ninja chick. But I don't know, I also feel stupid and like I'm overreacting. You know?"

She nodded, watching me go through the motions of making coffee. Busying my hands. "That's who I am. Knives Chau, random ninja chick. This doesn't change that."

"I know! Oh, I totally know that. I'm…" What else was there to say? "I'll shut up."

"Don't," she urged me, coming up to lean against the counter with her hip, attempting to catch my guilty eyes. "Say whatever it is. We can work through it. Like, if you need to say a bunch of… mean-sounding things that you regret later, just get them out, and we can talk about-"

"NO! Fuck that! I'm not gonna say shit that hurts you."

"You are. Not on purpose, but it'll come out. And I've probably said something that hurt you, and we should talk about that stuff, too, right?"

Biting my lip, I turned away. Then I whispered, "I basically called you a _guy_ when I was drunk. And couldn't tell it hurt you. Fuck…" My eyes widened. "The other day, when I said… I wanted you to 'be the boy' sometimes… oh no…"

"Shhh, it's fine, Kim," she urged me with a sad little smile. "You didn't know. I, um… I thought you were being super mean to me at the time, and I was hurt, but when you backed off right away I didn't know what to think. So I just figured you weren't thinking when you said it. Guess you didn't _have_ anything to think, 'cause you didn't remember."

"No, I just was… you know. Lesbians, gender roles, whatever."

Knives leaned up and planted a tiny kiss on my cheek, which made my stomach wobble. Both in a good way and a bad way, and I _hated_ that my brain couldn't just get over this. "I get it now. Sorry for blowing up at you a little."

"Are you kidding? After how I treated you when we were drunk? You never have to apologise for anything again."

"What 'treated me'? Nothing bad happened. You just… got a little carried away."

My voice was hoarse when I snapped, "I practically forced you into letting me get you off! It was sick! And I didn't even care, I just thought it was funny, a-and if I had actually pulled your bottoms off when you were telling me not to… if I went any further, it would b-be…"

When did I start crying? I _never_ cry. But Knives was already hugging me, stroking up and down my back. Kissing my cheek and whispering things like "It's okay" and "Shhh" over and over to me. Slowly but surely, it began to feel better, and my tears dried up. By then, I was hugging back, melting into the comfort of the woman who had turned me into some lovesick idiot.

"Kim, it's okay," she finally said when she could get through to me. "We were _both_ drunk and stupid. Two of us, not just you, all by yourself. I… sure, maybe I should have stopped you, and you should have stopped. That's why I don't really drink that much anymore, you know?"

"I did notice. And… and yeah, it's… a good idea." Burying my face in her shoulder, I growled, "I can't believe myself! I find out you've got a dick, and all I can say is 'Let me play with it, right here and right now!' Can your glove send me back in time to fucking beat my own ass black and blue?!"

At the phrase "you've got a dick," she did tense up slightly, but then she relaxed again and kissed my neck. Then laughed when I got to the end. "Okay, it wasn't _that_ bad. And… I was pretty scared because it was all so new, but I liked the feeling, and you seemed like you were enjoying yourself."

Only at that point did I start to feel embarrassed about that part. "Um… well, yeah. I never minded playing with Scott's. Kinda funny sometimes. And you looked really hot orgasming, but like… in a cute way. I think you'd be hotter with a little more, uh, practice? Does that make any sense or am I sounding like an idiot?"

"You think I need practice being jerked off to be more hot?" she asked in a confused voice.

"No, not… well… more practice doing stuff together. Because even if I was too drunk to notice then, I could tell while 'watching the replay' that you were really flipping out on me. So getting more comfortable might help. And you get more comfortable with something by doing it more often, right?"

"Not all the time," she sighed, shifting anxiously. I noticed that, and turned more fully to face her.

"I didn't mean right now. God, Knives, it's first thing in the morning!"

Glancing up at me, she flashed a hesitant smile. "Oh. No, I knew that. Still… I'm really not sure about sex even. Like, I can't do things the way a normal boy and a girl can, so like, I was _really_ not sure what would happen with Scott. And since my gender's different from what I have, like… it's scary."

"Yeah, Scott. He didn't, like… find out, did he?"

"Nah."

"Young Neil?" When Knives cleared her throat, I nodded. "That was why he dumped you. Couldn't handle the D?"

One of her hands made that wobbly "kinda, sorta" gesture. "Like I said, he just wasn't ready. And I was kinda using him to get back at Scott, so by the time I started to figure out I might _like_ like him for real, and I told him about my situation, it was pretty late to be making him feel like he mattered. Still wish I handled that better."

"Sorry," I said as the coffee maker finally started up. The smell was incredible, and already helping to waft away some of that mental fog. "Yeah… you said that to me before. The part about not being able to do things the way a boy and girl can do, but you weren't serious, right?"

"Huh?"

"Because we could. I mean… you have what you have, and I have what I have…"

"Oh," she breathed, then looked away as she shrugged. "Sure, but… I'm not going to be able to… y'know… like a boy would."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not a boy. It won't be the same; even if I try to be one, to do that like a boy would, I'll end up being dumb, and you'll laugh at me. That was what happened when I used to try to be 'manly' when I was little because everybody expected me to act like a normal boy: all the other kids laughed and called me a sissy, because I'd usually be crying while I did my manly act."

"Ah," I said lamely. It was all I could say to that, since I had no idea what that was like to go through.

"Which is part of the reason my dad started training me," she went on as she dug in my cabinets for a couple of coffee mugs. "First, because he wanted me to be more manly, too, and then when I came out to the family… he wanted me to be able to protect myself."

Leaning back against the counter, I took her in. How pretty she was; it was seriously unfair. "How'd they take it? You know… their son turning into a daughter."

"I was always a daughter," she laughed with a slight smile, one that made my heart skip over a beat and shatter in the same instant. "Just… didn't know I was until later in primary school. And it took until halfway through grade seven to really convince them, which was literally just in time; the blockers might not have worked."

"Blockers?"

"Hormone blockers. Sometimes, they give them to trans-babies before they're old enough to like, fully decide they want to go through with their transition. Basically, in my case they kept the testosterone from carrying me through boy-puberty, so while I was in junior high, I stayed a 'little boy'. Just helps the transition go smoother; it's not a requirement or anything. Then later, I started getting estrogen, which helped me grow boobs and wider hips and mostly kept boy-hair from coming in, all that." At the end, she grumbled, "Except for that annoying face-hair that popped up in the Cup… had to pluck that right away."

"Trans-babies?" I half-laughed, exasperated at all these shiny new vocabulary words.

"You know… like I was in junior high. Young, but starting to live my truth. I'm a trans-young adult now, of course."

"Right. Pupa stage. So you take the blockers because you're a baby transvestite. And then… what, the real hormones when you're over eighteen? Or no?"

"Transgender."

"What?"

"I'm transgender. And maybe transsexual someday. But yeah, that's how it was, except I started my hormones at sixteen."

"What did I say? Transvestite?" When she nodded as I reached into the fridge for the bag of milk, I shrugged. "Sorry, I guess I don't know what the difference is."

"Transvestite is like… a drag queen. A man who just dresses up girly some nights, maybe on the weekends, because he likes to feel feminine for a little while. Or he's doing it for the money; some do that, too. It's a performance art piece, like mimes." Then she winced. "Well, not mimes. Drag queens are _way_ cooler."

"And transgender is you? Meaning…" I went out on a limb. "Somebody who wants to live fully as the other gender?"

"Close. I already am, Kim." By now, she seemed a little worn by the conversation. There was no way around it; I needed this. But she was probably sick of telling everybody the same introductory shpiel by now. "This isn't something I'm trying on to see if it fits. I'm already a woman, and I was even before I figured it out. Just like I was already Chinese whether or not anyone told me I was, or I saw myself next to another Chinese person and thought 'hey, I look like that!' See? I'm who I am."

As I poured us two mugs of coffee, I took a quiet few seconds to digest. This was already hard on both of us. I really wasn't trying to say anything stupid, but I felt like every word I could say would be. ' _I support you'? 'You're hot no matter what gender you are'?_ If I said something like that and she blasted me off into space, I wouldn't even blame her.

All I came up with when I handed her the mug was, "You're Knives."

"Yeah," she breathed with a small smile.

"And… uh… I might not have any experience with this, but I'm going to learn. Just… y'know. Time."

"There's not much to learn besides big words to use," she giggled as she took the coffee and sipped. "Little stuff, like history and whatever. Mostly, I think you'll figure out pretty quick that I'm the same Knives you knew before you walked in on me last night."

"But… ugh, that fucking lock." As she laughed again, I took a long drink, using the caffeine to help me wake up. "Okay. So like, I'm gonna try to ask whatever comes into my brain if that's okay with you, and just… get it out of the way, like you said. Since I'm sure you want to go back to Mario Kart."

"Ninja Ninja Revolution," she breathed in a hallowed voice.

"How did you know? Like… I assume you grew up being called 'boy' and wearing boy clothes, getting Power Rangers instead of Polly Pockets, or whatever."

"Ahh, I loved Power Rangers, though! And my parents weren't interested enough to question why I always picked the Yellow Ranger toys, since you can't really tell her gender from the suit." That got a laugh out of me, and she grinned. "But um… yeah, I always knew something didn't fit right. I'd always want to try on dresses and pink stuff at the mall, and my mom would tell me 'that's not for boys'. She didn't mean anything by it, but she was pretty stubborn, and everything was black-and-white to her, y'know? Boys wear blue shirts with trucks on them, not pink ones with Disney princesses."

"Yeah, both of those sound like dumb things to wear to me."

Shaking her head, she nudged me with her elbow. "Dork. Anyway, I also didn't have as much interest in boy things like teasing girls, or eating bugs, or… I dunno, whatever it is boys do when they're little. Some of it, like 'playing ninja'... I loved that, but I also wanted to get the other girls on my street to play it with me, and they thought I was weird. And so did the boys for me asking the girls. And then I also wanted to play house with dollies, and dress-up, and try on makeup, and…"

Her face had turned a little sad. Without looking at her while I did it, my free arm looped around her waist and brought her close. It felt weirder being close to her now that I knew all this, but crying on her shoulder kind of broke the "barrier", if that makes any sense. As if any of this does.

"Um… a-anyway, there were a few bad times. Like, my mom came home and caught me trying on Tamara's clothes and wearing make-up, and she yelled at me for a while. Said a few words I don't want to repeat. My dad was actually better about it, he just said that 'A true ninja must be a master of his environment, and I applaud your desire to learn how the other side dresses'. It was… a little off the mark, and my mom didn't look happy about translating it for me, but hey, at least he didn't call me a fag."

The word even made me wince when Knives did. "Hey… you're not. And even if you were, like, you look damn good. Whatever."

"Thank you," she said, in one of those patient 'look at you, taking baby steps' tones of voice. Which was fair, because it was kind of a dumb response, but I tried. "Anyway, once it happened a few times, both my parents started accepting that this was part of who I was. And by then, I did some research online about this, and that there was a real name for what I was besides 'a freak'. So I was ready to have hard conversations, and… just… y'know. Really start living the way I wanted to."

"This is a big part of who you are. Man, I can't believe it hasn't come up before now."

"It has, plenty of times, but you didn't seem interested in the details. Which was because you were drunk and couldn't remember," she laughed a second later. "Like, I did try to ask if you wanted to know anything once, but you kinda blew me off."

"What? When?"

"The next morning." She perked up. "You want me to get the glove?"

"FUCK NO." Taking another long drink, I then said, "Just tell me. Use words. What happened the next morning?"

"Oh, I asked something like 'About last night… are we cool? Or do we need to talk about it?' and you went 'Why? It was just a kiss.' Then I was all, 'You know, the rest of it. Like, about me?' which got you going 'Whatever, don't worry about it. Shit happens when you're drunk. No further discussion required.' And, um… I thought that was pretty accepting of you, but now I know it's because you couldn't remember and you probably didn't want to seem dumb. No biggie, though."

As she told me that story, I could remember it on my own — thank Christ. But I was remembering it as being purely about making out with each other, and nothing related to her gender. Pulling away, I set down my coffee and ran my hands through my hair. "It _is_ a biggie, though! This huge thing about you that I totally forgot… I feel _stupid._ What if you told me you had terminal cancer, or you were destined to give birth to a genie, and it magically slipped my mind because of too much whisky?"

"Give birth to a genie?! Who would ever say something like that?" Her giggling got me to smile, though I was a lot more embarrassed than she was. The arm not holding coffee wrapped around me tightly. "Come on, don't be sad. If you're sure you're okay with me being trans, then I think we're all good."

"Yeah?" I hugged back, still feeling awkward but grateful that she wasn't mad about what I had done while smashed. "Um… thank you. Like, for real. I wouldn't cut most people this much slack for forgetting something so huge about me. You're a really chill chick."

"I know," she joked slightly with a big grin before taking another big drink. Then she frowned. "Hey, um, do you maybe have some Nesquik I can put in this? No offense, I'm just not big on plain old coffee…"

Snorting as I smiled at her, I said, "I'll see what I can do."

 _To Be Continued…_


	14. Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It'd be nice if that wrapped everything up in a neat bow. But nah. We didn't get our Happily Ever After that easily.

Let's cut to the chase and do some more summary. For the next couple of days, things were more or less about where they were before. We would make out a little, and game, and she'd babble and I'd listen with varying levels of interest. The only real difference was, every now and then I'd ask some question about the whole trans thing and she'd try to answer as best she could. Most of the time she was patient, but once in awhile… yeah, it clearly got on her nerves. Still, it was Knives and she liked me, so she didn't yell at me as much as I thought she should.

Also… kissing was weirder. It was all me, worrying about how I was kissing a trans girl instead of a "normal" girl. My own ignorance making me anxious, I guess. She would notice sometimes and ask if I was okay, and I'd tell her everything was fine and try to get past it. Most of the time, I succeeded. Because I knew, I _knew_ deep down that she was the same person, same bubble of sugary sweetness that I both found annoying and endearing. I was just being weird because…

Knives was the first person like that I'd ever met. It's not much of an excuse, I know. This just wasn't something I'd ever thought about before for more than five seconds. Don't judge me too badly, but most of what I'd thought about _was_ drag queens. When she told me there were guys like that, too — y'know, men who were born women, I was like, what does that even mean?! I'd never even heard of that! But it made sense once it sank in. Just… all new information, crazy to me but old news to her. She was pretty quick to correct me when I said something that made it sound like she was still a guy, or the one time I said "tranny" without even meaning for it to be an insult. Literally had never stopped to think that it was basically a slur, since it almost always gets used to say some chick looks "too manly", or some guy is "too girly". Like… sure, it's easy to see how it could be harmful when you've _thought about it,_ or when you see your girlfriend flinch as if she'd been stabbed, but I hadn't yet. I was in a totally new world and old rules didn't apply.

No sex. You were probably wondering about that, but literally the most we did was make out, maybe squeeze a buttcheek once or twice. If things started to get past that point, one of us would pull back. Just weren't there yet.

Although… we did have a hard conversation one night. We had been bingewatching some anime that Knives had on DVD, I didn't care much but I was starting to get into it toward the end. Bunch of ninjas or whatever. At some point, we got distracted from the TV by each other's faces. Sucking on them, to be exact…

~ o ~

"Hey," I breathed pulling back with a slight smile, gazing into her eyes the moment the opened again. _"There_ she is."

Swallowing hard, Knives glanced down between our bodies, then up again with a slight nervousness. It hurt to see that there, but it hurt because I was such a douchecanoe once upon a time to her. If I wasn't so dumb when I was drunk, maybe she could have been less uncomfortable.

"Sorry," I breathed, my smile gone like the wind. "Just… haven't felt that yet. While sober, I mean."

"Y-yeah," she whispered before clearing her throat. "I try not to let it… pop up, but… you just feel so good sometimes."

My hips shifted a little, and I felt the firm little presence grinding into my hip. She was basically straddling my thigh again, only we were seated on a couch this time. "Mmm, you don't have to hide that now. Let it pop up."

"But I'm still so weird about… you know…"

"Sex?" A small nod, and I kissed her chin. "Shhh. If you're ready, then you're ready. Why hold back?"

"But I'm _not_ ready."

"Then why are you hard as a rock down there?" Right after that, she rolled away and sat down next to me. "What? Knives…"

"Just because I'm hard doesn't mean I want to do anything with it. You do get that, right? Like… I might kind of want to, but that's not the same as being _ready_ for that."

A guilty thrill shot through me, and I pushed a hand into my mouth for a second. This was the same thing that happened when I was drunk, except I hadn't been listening then. "Sorry." That was all I could get out.

Her hand reached down and grasped mine. "I do want to, though. Like… just…"

"Yeah. Like you said, it's a weird thing for you because of… that word. Dis-something."

"Dysphoria."

"That's the one. Makes you feel funny about your body matching your brain."

Her voice really was apologetic as she went on, "I don't want to be the man, banging you like a woman. I'm in lesbians with you, and have no interest in trying to be your boyfriend. And… I don't know, it's stupid."

"Not stupid if it's how you feel. I'm just trying to get this. You have a raging boner that I'm very ready to help you out with. And… I know I fuck up my words sometimes, but I really don't think you're a guy. Promise. So just… what's the problem? Is it me? Because like, I know this is only the second time I've felt-"

"It's not you," she cut me off urgently. "Come on! You rock, Kim, you're so hot! Like, my issues have nothing to do with how attractive you are, okay?"

Going for broke, I whispered, "Let me go down on you. Or jerk you off, maybe. We can try it and see how it goes. And if I do or say something off the mark, you can tell me. Now or later. Feedback helps. And you don't have to do anything for me if you're not ready for it, either."

"What if I'm not ready for anything at all? Is that okay? Or do you really need to do something every time you feel my dick get hard?"

There was a slight accusation in that tone. I felt anger pulse behind my temples. "Excuse me?"

"Well, you did the same thing last time," she sighed, clearly annoyed. "I thought you would be different now that you aren't drunk."

"No, I'm _asking,_ not just doing it and then asking you afterward," I shot back. "And I apologised for that; I still feel like shit, but hey, thanks for the reminder."

"You're kind of doing it again, though. I just… want to make out with you, and if I get hard for it not be an issue, because all it means is that I'm enjoying myself. Not that I'm ready to 'take it to the next level'. If you make out with a guy and your nipples get hard, does that mean you definitely want them to fuck you?"

Running my hands through my hair, I turned away from her. "Fine. Nevermind."

"Answer me."

"No."

"Okay. Sorry for not being ready when you are."

I didn't reply. What was there to say? We had been doing so well up until that point, I was _blindsided_ that it suddenly blew up in my face. And I wanted to tell her that I was okay with this, but it also felt like an insult. My stupid brain was used to a guy getting hard, and right away wanting to have sex. And I know, I know, everybody's different, and she wasn't a guy… I just needed to adjust my thinking. In case you couldn't tell, it was going pretty slow.

"Kim, I'm not a dildo. Like… to be honest, I kind of wish I was. For you. But I don't feel ready, and I think if I push myself to do it before I'm ready, then… neither of us are going to be very happy with the result."

Still no reply. Now I was _hurting_ her. Could I be any more of a fuckup?

"Kim? Oh no… oh God, don't turn to stone again!"

That snapped me out of my daze. She was right; I could feel my limbs and muscles freezing up, getting more solid. "Nhh? Hhh nhh!" My mouth was sealed shut, too.

"Crap… where's that bottle of Soft? What did you do with-"

"Wait… okay… I…" Somehow, little by little, I was able to move again. A few very pale flakes of weird material shattered from my joints, and off my eyelids when I blinked, but it wasn't an actual full layer of rock like the last time. "Ooh… shit, that was close."

Arms looped around me, and Knives pushed her damp eyes into my neck. "I'm so sorry, I- you can touch me, I don't care. I don't care! Just please don't turn to stone, I really can't handle that, okay?"

Every word was like a blade piercing my heart. This wasn't her responsibility. Sure, it made me happy that she cared so much, but it frightened me a little that she was willing to sacrifice her own comfort for me that easily. Since two seconds ago, she had been telling me how important it was that she have the time she needed to get comfortable with the idea of me poking around downstairs.

"Knives…" That was all I could say for now. My hands gripped at the back of her shirt as I hugged her. "I'm sorry…"

"No, really, y-you can go down on me! Do you want to now? I mean… I'm not hard anymore, but I think if you-"

"Please stop," I begged her, the tears in her voice about to make mine start up again. "Just shut up."

But she wasn't having it. Pushing me away to look into my face, which I hated because I didn't like people seeing me without my shields in place, she shouted, "I can't let you be a statue just because I'm…"

Neither of us spoke for a second. Trying to figure out this situation. I wanted to leave, I wanted to run out the door and away from this annoying intensity, because I didn't fucking sign up for it. I didn't even want her as a _friend_ in the beginning, let alone this! But she was also really important to me now. Like, crucial even. Seeing her upset purely because I couldn't figure out my shit made me feel so broken…

"Don't ever do that again," I finally managed to sob. "Don't ever say that y-you'll… that you would _force_ yourself to do something you're not ready for just b-because I'm… a weird gargoyle thing! GOD! Please don't!"

Her lip quivered, but she threw her arms around me again, whispering, "Okay! Okay, I won't, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Kim, I just don't want to lose you!"

My lips found her neck over and over, and she began to cry more now that the initial panic was gone. We both needed a release, so we let that happen for a little while until the sniffles were outnumbering the sobs. We pulled back and kissed, and then both of us started saying a bunch of sappy shit like "you're so good to me" and "I don't deserve you," blah blah blah.

Not blah blah _to me,_ though. I was falling hard for Knives Chau. Just didn't know how to handle that yet.

~ o ~

"That makes more sense," she said a while later as we snuggled in my bed. Mostly clothed, sharing a bottle of water. "But we still need to figure out what's causing you to turn."

Sighing, I pushed my face up against her shoulder. "Yeah. Probably because I'm a chickenshit."

"Don't say that. You are not, you're just… bad… at feelings? I hope that's not offensive."

"It's accurate. I don't like feelings. They suck."

"Yeah, you do. What you don't like is that they leave you open and vulnerable. But… I'm not going to hurt you, Kim. You know that!"

Nodding, I pet over her stomach as I smirked very slightly. "You're pretty badass, though. Helped take down Gideon. What if I turned into an evil ex? You'd have to defeat me, and I wouldn't stand a chance."

"You won't turn 'evil'. You're such a good, sweet, pure-"

"Lies."

"You ARE. Under all that grumpiness." That made me snort, and she grinned, leaning down to nuzzle my nose. "Didn't say you were a perfect ray of sunshine, just… such an awesome girl! I can see it, even if you can't."

"Should have your eyes checked," I deflected, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart. Like I said, cavity-inducing.

"Maybe. They only seem to see you."

How did she actually _top_ herself that quickly? I already was reeling from how much affection she could show, and then she shows even more without giving me a chance to recover first. So again, I did the thing. I tried to rise to her level of flirting-ness, to not just be the useless lump in the relationship. Here's what I came up with:

"Fuck. I can't believe you like me. You're too cool to date such an asshole."

Points for effort?

"Aww," she cooed as if I had recited some touching sonnet. My cheeks were burning, I could tell when she kissed them and her lips were like ice against the skin. "I think we're both pretty cool."

"Sleep here?" I urged, needing it. Not wanting to show how much, but hoping she would spot it anyway. "Set an alarm, and just… use today's uniform again tomorrow?"

Nodding, she snuggled in close. "As long as you promise not to pounce on my morning wood. Just making sure," she rushed ahead when I winced. "And if you do, it's only gonna mean another talk. Not that I hate you or want to leave you. Right?"

"Right," I groaned, flopping onto my back. She only moved in closer. This time, I felt the warm squish of her soft junk against my thigh; it was kind of nice. I'd never felt that before with a dude, because I never had a relationship with one long enough to include much cuddling. "I promise."

"And we're not done trying to figure out why the statue-thing happens. I… I want you to be _safe_ , and not have to worry that I'll come home and find…"

The ominousness of that idea hung over both of our heads for a moment. I whispered to her, "We will. I don't want it, and you don't want it; pretty unanimous. Not that I have any clue where to start."

"Tomorrow," she yawned as she nuzzled in, already drifting off.

"Knives?" A little hum was her only response. "I'm… glad you're back in my life. Fucking crazy as it's been. Just didn't want you to…"

By that point, I could feel her deeper breathing, and knew I was trying to talk to a snoozing woman. Shaking my head very gently, I settled in to drift off with her.

 _To Be Continued…_


	15. Chapter 15

NOTE: NSFW moment at the beginning here, and a lot of NSFW discussion afterward.

* * *

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As you probably guessed, my morning involved being jabbed in the hip. It did take a lot of willpower not to do anything about it. Like… it's not so much that I like dick, to be honest. More that I enjoy getting one off, seeing the other person squirm. Usually it's a guy, and I derive a dark satisfaction from being in control. But with Knives… it's different. With her, I want to make her happy. Flood her with all those fun endorphins that I avoid like the plague. So there were two different reasons that the little bump throbbing into me through my shorts and her pyjamas had me biting my lip and trying to think about baseball.

When her hips started moving, I wondered if I would have to poke her and wake her up. She was basically asleep and dry-humping me in her dreams. In the end, I made a compromise and I cupped her butt and let her go to town; didn't encourage further, didn't go further. Just let it happen up against my hip until she woke up on her own.

"Hmmhh?" she muttered when her eyes finally fluttered open.

"Was wondering if you'd wake up before or after you splooge."

"Ohh…" Then she flashed me a sleepy, embarrassed grin as she squeezed her eyes shut. "What am I doing?"

"Humping my leg." I started to tell her to keep going, then decided it might not be the best phrasing; it wasn't supposed to be a _command_. How could I make this clear? Lucky for me, I'd been awake another five or so minutes before she was or my brain never would have come up with anything. "Not that I mind." There, that ought to do it.

"You don't?" Licking her lips, she began to grind more, breath coming a little faster. After a minute of this, she then said, "Wait… are you sure?"

"Yeah, Knives. If you want to… I wish you would go ahead." Maybe that much encouragement was too enthusiastic. I wanted to tell her she could do even more than that, but after being so pushy before, I was gunshy. This was good for now.

And she seemed to agree, if the way she kept at it was any indicator. Just like that first drunken night, I felt her get harder as she put in more effort, then everywhere was getting warmer. She was pretty close to… _there._ My face nuzzled her neck, left little kisses of encouragement.

"You sure this isn't weird?" she asked after a while, putting in the full amount of force now.

"Not any weirder than life in general. Seriously… enjoy yourself. Whatever."

For some reason, we didn't kiss. Not during. Kissed necks and the sides of heads, but we didn't look at each other and didn't let our lips lock together. Watching her was kind of a dream come true: I had been wanting it ever since I got smacked in the forehead. Another chance to see her come into full bloom like that, without the moral dilemmas.

Her voice became more broken, turned into more moans than breaths or words. Definitely wanted it in me, but could settle for this. For now. As long as Knives was doing what made her happy and satisfied.

She blew, and I didn't even have to ask to make sure. I kept up my kissing, kneaded her ass with my one hand while she thrust a few more times, spasming her way through strangled cries. Like the last time, I could feel warmth pooling where she had deposited the proof of what we did, and it felt both a little gross and really interesting. I dunno. Then she flopped down, completely spent for the moment.

"Mmm," I purred with a smile as I kissed her forehead. "Pretty hot. How was it?"

" _Wow,"_ she breathed.

"Really?" A little nod. "Huh. Didn't figure that would really do much for you."

Her hand petted up and down my stomach. "It did. Like, it was pretty hard to finish that way, just grinding against you, but, um… it was… you being here makes it better. You really thought it was hot?"

"Dude, I'm soaking wet right now. So yes."

The redness in her cheeks was the darkest I've ever seen it. "You are? O-oh, I'm sorry…"

"Don't be sorry. Like you said about popping a hard-on; just means I enjoyed the show."

For a few seconds, I thought that was going to be the end of this encounter. She did her humping thing, got off, and I had the satisfaction of knowing I'd done it _right_ this time. All in all, a great start to our morning. But then I noticed her hand caressing my thighs.

"Hey. What's up?"

"Just wanted to… y'know. If you wanted. No pressure, of course! Since I haven't ever tried that on a girl. Or I could watch you do it, or you could… on m-my leg…"

A little fear was in with her usual bubbliness. The suggestion had been a little off-hand, but I had a gut feeling that I should pick that one over the other two. "Let me handle this. Take notes." When she started to sit up to go get something, I added, " _Mental_ notes, ugh. You really think I want you running to find a notepad right about now?!"

"Oh…" Blanching, she laid back down and kissed my cheek. "I'll stay by your side."

With an offer like that, I felt both a lot more excited to jill off than I had in a while, and a little intimidated. This was literally the first time I'd ever done that to _myself_ with someone else watching; a couple of my dates had tried to finger me with varying degrees of success. If I didn't threaten to cut their hands off for jumping in too soon. My hand began to snake down past my waistband as my eyes flicked back and forth between that and Knives's face.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty curious. As long as you don't mind?"

I did, a little. Made me feel like I was doing it on stage in front of a crowd, which I was only used to when I was being a badass with my trap set. But Knives looked so eager…

That was not only one of the hardest orgasms of my life, but probably the fastest since I was in junior high. The whole situation, her being next to me, recently-spent cock pushed into my hip through our clothes, had me so ready to come that it only took me a couple of minutes. My girlfriend-ish person was so invested that I don't think she blinked at all the entire time; just kept her eyes glued to my body, mostly watching my hand and looking up at my face to watch my reactions now and then. Left little kisses on my shoulder. I did it no-frills, just flicked the bean until I saw stars, but she was mesmerised and I was beyond satisfied.

"Whoa," she finally breathed when I flopped down to recover.

At first, all I could bring myself to do was gasp for breath and whisper, "Yeah?" Then I turned to smile at her, swallowing to re-coat my dry throat. "I probably… looked ridiculous."

"No way! Not like I did, rubbing on you like a dog!"

"H-hey, I don't normally find it hot when dogs do that." Then I cringed, being forced to think about dog dicks for a half-second.

But Knives didn't seem to care about that. She just snuggled in closer, kissing my lips very briefly. She did let out a little squeak of surprise when I rolled onto her, taking her lips hard, needily, initiating a kiss that lasted for a good few minutes without any break.

"So," she finally asked when we broke apart, eyes dazed and cheeks flushed, "if I came, and you came… does that mean we did it? Kinda?"

"Kinda," I admitted. For us, as awkward first-time lesbians who both had a few issues, it counted. Then I made an observation: "You're poking me again."

"Yeah. But um…" A little shrug.

"What?"

"I can't go again. I've tried, it never…" She trailed off.

"Twice in a row is asking too much?" A little nod. "Gotcha. So this is like, when you want more pizza but your stomach is already _way_ too full?"

"Hey… yeah! That's it exactly! Kim, you're so smart!" She gave me two kisses to both of my cheeks, which had me rolling my eyes and trying not to smile so wide.

"Nerd."

"Nerd for you." Her hands pet up and down my back. "Sorry if I'm being too shippy."

My brow wrinkled. "Shippy?"

"Relation-shippy. You know… like, saying girlfriend things when you're not sure about… this whole situation. I just like you a whole lot."

"Clingy shippy nerd." But the tone must not have been too off-putting, because a second later she let me kiss her again. Then I settled in against her body. "Mmm… still crazy. You and me. Out of everybody, y'know? I thought you'd end up with Scott, or Neil. Or even Stephen before he came out. I was pretty low on the list."

"Not on my list. I just didn't… well, y'know… the gender thing."

She lost me. "Huh?"

"Well, because I'm trans, I kind of… expected to need to date men? And I did, and they're okay sometimes, but that night with you really opened my eyes to like, the possibilities. That I could be a lesbian — or bisexual, of course. 'Cuz there's always that whole, 'why don't you just stay a guy if you're going to date women?' thing."

"But you said you weren't a guy. Like, that you are definitely a girl."

Patiently, she went on, "Right. I get that, but other people don't. They think I can just 'switch back' if I'm going to date girls. Like, just because I have a dick doesn't mean that dating guys makes me a gay guy, either, so why would I be a straight guy for dating girls? It's kinda dumb. But… I still kinda bought into it, so I never, like… gave dating women any serious thought before you jerked me off."

My entire body winced, and I know she felt it. "Man, I wish you wouldn't say it like that."

"Like what? You did!"

"I know! Gah, I don't remember it though! Like, I remember _watching_ it happen thanks to your glove, but I was definitely not in my right mind when I did it, I just… reacted. Because…"

Because why? That was kind of a mystery. Maybe my feelings about Knives were already there, buried deep, or maybe I just liked the feeling of her dick so much and my curiosity was so high that I reacted on instinct. But now wasn't the time to contemplate that any deeper.

Mostly because Knives's phone started going off right then. She rolled over to grab it, and I immediately hated the loss of warmth, even in the summer.

"Shit, it's my _second_ alarm; I'm gonna be late if I don't go shower and change. Um… sorry."

"It's cool. Can I watch?"

"Shut up," she giggled, and I shrugged with a shy smile. "But um… that was really fun. We'll have to try it again sometime. Or maybe more?"

"Maybe." I forced myself to say that instead of "definitely", or "please split me open and slam into me." All it had taken was a little more proof that our physical chemistry was damn good to know I really wanted to bang her. Or her to bang me, or whatever.

That did put a thought in my head. One that bumped around and mutated for a little while as I started coffee, changed shorts — and underwear, because snail slime is not fun to carry around all day — and waited for her to get out of the shower. When she bounced out in her uniform, the question came out too randomly and without previous context.

"Should I buy a strap-on?"

"Huh?" she asked, still pouring coffee. Then her brain fully caught up to the meaning, and she gaped at me, stunned into silence.

"Knives… Knives, the coffee…"

Blinking, she stared down at how her cup was running over onto the counter. "OH NO! Oh God, crap, oh no!"

Together, we got that cleaned up without too much fuss, wringing out paper towels into the sink to use again. Once it was mostly done, I mumbled, "Sorry for that. I, uh… could have used a little more tact."

"It's okay," she laughed, still a little nervous and self-conscious. "I just… y-yeah, wow. Hadn't even thought of that."

"Me either, until this morning. Because… I don't know, something about the way you keep saying you weren't sure about normal 'boy-and-girl' sex. And like, that's obviously you banging me, but I was thinking about how, uh, normal lesbians can take turns with that if they have a strap-on. At first, I was like 'shame I can't do that for Knives.' And then I realised that I could, even if it's… not _exactly_ the same. But I didn't know if you would even be into that."

Both of us were a little stunned at how much I over-explained, and I shut my lips tight as I spritzed cleaner onto the counter to get the last of the coffee. Eventually, Knives said, "Yeah… that's a whole other thing, huh? Butt stuff."

"Right. Not something I care about normally. But… if you do-"

"Actually, I don't know. Like, I think I told you I tried fingering myself before but barely did anything. So I really have no idea if I'd like… y'know… going the whole way, a dildo in there, or whatever."

"You did? Wait… yeah, you did." Now I remembered: at the time, I thought she had been talking about fingering a vagina, of course. Having no clue she didn't own one of those. Then my eyes widened when I realised what she _did_ mean, and painted a very vague mental picture. "OH."

"What?"

"Well. I mean… how was it?"

A tiny shrug as she sipped at her coffee. Funny how she could drink some of my crappy brew and then go work somewhere they made actual good coffee; maybe she was just being polite, or maybe she wanted to make me feel better. Whatever. "Weird? I guess I didn't hate it, but like I said, didn't get going enough to know for sure."

That brief image of Knives worming a finger into herself was hotter than I had anticipated. Like, I really mean it when I say I had zero interest in anal. Still didn't, on me or on anyone else. But for some reason, with Knives being a girl who didn't have anywhere else to finger, it had a whole new meaning. That vision dancing in my head, my sweet ninja on her back and moaning while she did that to herself, practically had me needing to go another round of bean-flicking.

"Yeah… I… yeah." Clearing my throat, I finished wiping down the counter and rinsed out the cloth. "U-um, add that to the list of… things I would try with you… if you ever…" I didn't even bother to finish the sentence. I _couldn't._

"You'd finger my butt?!" Knives seemed not so much touched or turned on by the idea as just flat-out shocked. "Wow, I didn't- w-well, I mean, I'll remember! Don't worry! But you'd really want to? I mean, it's… y'know…" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "A _butt."_

"I'll wear a glove," I reassured her. Reassured both of us, really. "Means I have to cut my nails. Normally do, though, but…"

A little nervous laugh escaped her. "H-hey, don't… worry, I'm not ready for it yet! No rush!" She bit her lip, smiling. "Wow…"

Smirking with dark glee, I slipped an arm around her waist. "Imagine me doing that for you while I go down on you. Just really wanting to make you feel good all over."

Watching her face turn into a beet was totally worth the way she shoved me away a few seconds later, pushing both hands into the beet-face and turning away. "AAH! Shut up, I have to go to work!"

"Wonder if I could fit two in there?" But she was already running for the bathroom, squealing the whole way.

 _To Be Continued…_


	16. Chapter 16

NOTE: Yes this one is super short, too. Sorry! Next one will be better.

* * *

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Let's skip to a couple days later. Not much else happened other than smarmy grossness. Of course, that still wouldn't be the usual level of pure, grade-A Canadian maple sap given that I was part of the relationship, but it was cute. Lots of takeout and movies, gaming, snuggling. Things that I had to get used to since none of my previous significant others had ever stuck around long enough.

Well… other than Scott.

Maybe that's why he was on my mind so much during that time. Literally the only other long-term relationship I'd had was him, and we were in high school, trying to figure ourselves out as much as we were trying to figure out each other and how to combine those two factors. Opening up those memories was like watching him drive away all over again, but I kept doing it. Had to figure out if there was some weird nugget of truth in there somewhere that could help me figure out how not to fuck everything up with Knives.

Scott and I didn't "date" much. It was definitely a benefriends situation; we were buds who started boinking in the back of my parents' car. So all of our activities were about the same as they had been before; practicing music, hanging out with Lisa Miller. We didn't do much that was coupley other than holding hands and sex. From what I heard, Scott got all those romantic experiences from Natalie after he dropped me like a bad habit.

So why did I keep thinking about him if there wasn't much wisdom to be had? Because I didn't have any other experiences to compare it with.

I'm pretty pathetic. But at least I had someone to call and ask for advice. He might not be the most monogamous person I know, but he is a flaming queer, and has had more success in the dating arena than pretty much anyone else in my extended circle. Maybe using my phone-a-friend lifeline counted as cheating, but when working with such a severe handicap, I figure it all shakes out.

~ o ~

"Well, well, well," Wallace Wells half-purred in that voice of his. You know the one. "The redhead."

"That is the colour of my hair, yes," I grumbled.

"Didn't expect to ever hear from you again once Ess Bee Bee and that other thing broke up. See you around in that bump-into-people-you-knew-through-people-in-Honest-Ed's way, sure…"

Gripping my drumstick tighter as I sat on my drumset's seat — the seat of power, a place from which I drew comfort and ability to cope with life — I said, "Same. But I got your number from Stacey, because… I need help."

"'Fraid I'm fresh outta that stuff."

"Help? You're 'out' of help. Really?"

"Yep. The generic kind. But if you elaborate, I might have a specific flavour blend in stock…"

He was definitely going to make me work for this. So I decided to stop being shy and cut through the double-talk and uncertainty. "I'm dating Knives."

The line was quiet for a moment. "That sounds painful. My advice is to buy plenty of bandages for when things get frisky."

"No, Knives _Chau_. Scott's ex."

"Oh!" he said in a pleasant tone of voice. Even now, I'm not totally sure whether he was trolling me or if he really didn't think I meant her the first time. "She was cute in a Pokémon trainer kind of way. Didn't think you played in the kiddie pool."

"She's in college now, you asshat. But I could use some advice."

"Advice for dating women? Fresh out of that, too."

Gritting my teeth, I said, "Wallace…"

"Alright, alright. So you're edging onto the Rainbow Road and you're afraid of flying off the side. I gotcha. Assuming that's the reason you called me instead of someone else you know…?"

"There's nobody else. Stephen's pretty much the only other person I could call, but he gives terrible advice. Hollie is in Nowhereville with Jason, who knows? And Steph… I just don't know her very well. Or maybe _too_ well. I'm really not sure which."

"That makes me the bartender."

"What?"

"You know, the nameless bartender you tell all your deepest, darkest secrets to in hopes he can give you guidance because you're too blasted to figure out he couldn't care less about your life."

"Fine, nevermind. God, sorry to have bothered you."

But he was chuckling. "Alright, alright. I'm half-kidding; I barely know you and don't care that much, but you're family now. That has to be taken into consideration."

"I'm… family?"

"Gay family. A budding bisexual, right?"

"Y-yeah." I cleared my throat to get rid of that uncertain quaver. "I guess."

"We all start out 'guessing'. It's okay." He let out a long sigh, and there was the sound of something being moved around; he was probably working on something in his apartment, or at his job. Whatever that was. "How long have you two been having playdates?"

"A couple weeks, or whatever," I growled, ignoring the insult.

"How far have you gone?" When I let out a strangled noise, he reassured me, "For informational purposes only. Trust me, I'm not going to get off on two girls doing anything. If there's not at least one dick involved, it's off my curiosity list."

I started to correct him that one _was_ involved, but again I felt that instinct to protect her identity kick in. Maybe I should ask her if she minded me telling people at some point. "Dry-humping. She's kind of… never done it, and I haven't done it with a girl. I swear, if you tell anyb-"

"Lips are sealed. Do you want it to go further?"

"YES! But I mean, only if she's ready."

"Good, that's good. I've had a hesitant date or two. No still means no, and that's more important than all the prep work in the world, but I have a couple ideas that could help get her in the mood."

That one hit me hard. Luckily, I just _barely_ listened to her "no"s when we were drunk as skunks. Nodding as I chewed on my drumstick, I then put it down and said, "That'll help, but I'm actually more worried about… other stuff. Like, how to be in a relationship with a cute, bubbly, fun girl when I'm a vortex of despair."

"Opposites attract. Chances are, she already likes you _because_ you're a vortex of despair. Not usually something people put on their eHarmony profile, though." But apparently, I had him curious. "What other stuff?"

"Dating. I suck at it. Like…" I tried to lower my defenses. "She's so sweet to me, and I feel like I'm just _there._ Sucking all the fun out of the room. I want her to feel what I feel. Or I guess, to _show_ her that. Something."

"Awww, baby lesbians are so cute. Like puppies."

"Ugh…"

Then he sighed again, a long, floaty sigh of someone toying with someone else. Which would be me. "Alright, never fear — Wallaciraptor is here. Let's help you get rolling…"

~ o ~

When Knives walked in the door, I could tell she was caught off-guard by the way her purse fell to the floor instead of being set down. "Kim? I… what's going on?"

"Nothing," I lied as I bent over to take the casserole out of the oven, showing off my bare ass. Just below the apron strings. Yes, I really did the cliché. Yes, it was super uncomfortable for me, since I'm not exactly a flesh-flashing kinda girl. But I thought, hey, it was worth a shot. "Making dinner."

Which was also part of the plan. There were multiple parts; I didn't know which one to try, so I tried everything. One big gesture to try and prove to both Knives and myself that I could be a girlfriend, and not just some drummer chick who acts like she's on the rag all the time.

"Yeah, but you're _naked!_ I mean… almost!"

"You like it? I thought the green apron brought out my eyes." It still came out sounding sarcastic, even though I didn't mean for it to. My voice just sounds that way unless I'm actively suppressing the biting tone, and even then sometimes it bleeds through.

"Um…" Deciding not to comment on my butt, she turned toward the stove. "Smells great! We're having casserole?"

"Yes. And garlic bread. That's not done yet, though. And, um…" I glanced at my coffee table, where there was a cabernet open and "breathing" — Wallace's suggestion. I would have just put a couple of beers down to go with dinner, or at least uncorked the wine right before drinking it.

Knives walked over and touched one of the wine glasses with a finger. I got them from a dollar store specifically for this occasion, since I didn't own any before. Then she picked up the remote for the stereo system, which was pretty conspicuous because it was the only other thing on the table. "What's this do?"

"Hit 'play'," I said as I got out plates.

She did. And quiet, soft, romantic piano music started floating out of the speakers. Also from the dollar store, but I listened to the whole CD before using it to make sure it wasn't too terrible. She _laughed…_ but it was a very specific, actual happy laugh. Not so much at my expense as just surprised at the situation, I guess.

"What is all this?" she asked as she went back over to kick off her work shoes and leave them by the purse. "Like… I thought we were just going to have cup ramen and watch TV."

"Wanted to try something else. Um… y-you'll have to tell me if it's any good. Never tried this recipe before." Hell, I don't think I'd ever cooked anything more complex than a frozen pizza in forever.

Once she was in the kitchen, she put her hand in the small of my back. "I'm sure I'll love it." Then she shivered and smiled shyly, withdrawing from the touch. "Not used to touching your skin like that."

"I can change if it's more comfortable for you. This was kind of just… y'know. The 'naked housewife fantasy' bit as a joke. Or maybe not a joke, if you liked it."

"Trying to get me in the mood?" she guessed with a slightly wry smile. When I flushed a little darker, she stopped smiling. "Wait… oh, is this really what that is?"

"Not exactly. But… kind of. I just… wanted to be a good girlfriend, or something like that. I dunno."

The silence was kind of tense. She didn't look angry, just a little confused and contemplating the whole situation. Then she glanced at the oven and back at me.

"How much longer? For the garlic bread."

"About another five. I'll be quick." Clearly, she wanted me in real clothes, which I already had laid out on my dresser. Ready for plan B.

And I was more okay with that than I first expected. Sure, it hurt a little that she didn't know how to feel about me being naked while we ate, but at the same time, neither did I. Just seemed like a weird idea. But Wallace swore it worked like a charm on this one guy he was dating, so I figured I'd give it a shot. No real harm.

Once I was wearing a nice white blouse and a long grey skirt, we got our plates loaded down with casserole and bread and moved things to the table, where we sat cross-legged and ate and drank. She told me about her day, and I told her about mine until the point at which I started getting dinner ready, which I didn't think was interesting — until she started demanding more details with her cute, patient way of doing everything. Incredibly, stories about me buying ingredients and wine glasses was actual entertainment for her.

And somehow, she managed to out-girlfriend me again. Shut up, I know it's not a competition… I know. But even after I drove like a thousand miles outside my comfort zone, hoping to really show her how much I cared and how much she meant to me, Knives was already there and had a jetpack to fly even further. She started doing the dishes as soon as we took our plates to the kitchen, said it was her turn to cook next time when I wasn't expecting it, asked if I had a long day, offered to rub my back when I moved my neck and made the world's tiniest wince… and she gave me the rub, and it felt so good. Told me I looked really cute in the outfit before I could ask. Sweetness and sunshine.

What kind of jerk was she to be so perfect?

 _To Be Continued…_


	17. Chapter 17

NOTES: Time to move forward with the plot. I know it probably seemed like there was barely any plot, just fluff-fodder, but I swear I was building to this all along! Really!

* * *

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"You seem a little distracted."

Looking up from my bongos, I blinked at Steph for a few seconds. "Was I not playing my part? I thought it sounded… like the song. Y'know."

"It's not that. You just aren't focused." Putting down her zither, she picked up her aloe drink and chugged it for a minute. I tried not to make a face of pure disgust. "Like, I can sense it even though you're playing fine, if that makes sense."

"What, with my chakras or some shit?" But again, she was impervious to my acidity. "Fine. But I don't wanna talk about it."

"You and Knives?"

"Don't wanna talk about it."

"How's that going?"

Sighing, I ran my hand down my face and gritted my teeth against my irritation. I knew by now that yelling at Steph to shut the fuck up and leave me alone made little difference. But to be honest, I was in a good enough place with Knives that I wasn't even that irritated.

"Nice. Now, can we get back to practice?"

"I thought you were worried about, like… the lesbian thing."

"Not really. Just…" Should I tell her about Knives? It didn't seem right, for reasons previously stated; that was Knives' information to share as she saw fit. Maybe she wouldn't care, but maybe she would. You never can tell how people will react; I couldn't even tell how _I_ would react before I was told. I decided it was easier, safer, to maintain my vow of silence. "I dunno. It's good. She's really…" I ran out of words.

"Good? Nice?" My grumpy face turned grumpier. "It's okay, I just like seeing you doing better."

"Better than what?"

Another of her usual casual shrugs. "Before."

"Fine." Then I threw my bongos aside and stood, glaring at my current bandmate. "She's great. She's completely changing how I see life. Everything is perfect, especially her. Birds suddenly appear every time that she's near, alright? Fuck."

"Saying that in a sarcastic tone doesn't _necessarily_ mean that it's not true." But I ignored her and went off to pee.

While I was in there, I came to a sudden realisation. Knives wasn't just a girl, wasn't just my girlfriend. Wasn't just a trans girl, either, whatever that meant; I was still kind of working my way through that along with the 'girlfriend' part. It hit me that she was just about _every letter_ in the ever-expanding LGBTQIPA acronym, if you looked at it all in certain ways. Lesbian, for dating me. Gay, for being a person with a dick who didn't mind dating people with dicks — and I know it's not the same, but the sex would be. Bi, for dating me and Scott. The "T" is obvious. Queer because she's more than one letter, since that's kind of what that means as far as I can tell; it's the "gray area" checkbox. Maybe not the "I", since I'm fuzzy on that one, but if she was that would be cool, too. And as for the A…

Okay, so I did some reading at the library. I don't have internet at home, so I go there for email, to print resumes, boring crap like that. But I also have been doing a _lot_ of research there lately. About Knives, about me… about all of this. Trying to wrap my head around a lot of new concepts that are still space alien type shit to me. And the "A" seems to stand for "asexual", which… I was starting to wonder if that was Knives. Or me, even, since I've gone without for a LONG fucking time and didn't really care until I connected with her. Maybe I do care more now. But she's fine if we don't bang, and thought humping my leg was good enough.

So like… I guess what I'm saying is, I'm trying to get comfortable with the idea that she might never want to have any sex. Or not a lot, or not for a while. Somewhere in there. If me literally getting naked in the kitchen — which, in Wallace's battle plans, sends the message that _I'm_ dessert — didn't faze her, then maybe nothing would. And that's alright if it's what she wants. God will I be thirsty, but I'd rather just buy a new vibrator than ever make her uncomfortable again. It's the same shit in the end, right? If she was a normal- wait, no, wrong word. If she was a _cis woman_ , then we'd be buying vibes, anyway. Acting all personally offended that she doesn't want to use a dick I didn't know existed a couple weeks ago to part my pussy lips doesn't seem like a wise use of my energy, does it?

Anyway, the point here is, I was realising that Knives Chau was all of those things, and she was also some kind of Chinese ninja, a college student, _way_ too good at Mario Party, and an adorable little bean that could almost always find a way to stay positive. She was special in about a dozen ways. On top of being hot. And for whatever reason, she wanted to be with _me._

Why would anyone like her settle for some failed musician, some misanthropic pessimist?

Someone who could come so close to hurting her just because of a little alcohol?

So when I came back out of the bathroom, I looked about as shaken as I did when I went in. I wasn't crying this time, thank God, but I was stumbling and distracted. Not long passed before Steph came over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder to hold me still.

"Kim… what's up? Seriously, this has to be more than just worrying about being gay."

"Not gay. Bi. Probably. I don't know." Then I cleared my throat. "I want to be… fuck, nevermind."

"Come on, Pine. Out with it."

Another minute of silence passed. I expected her to roll her eyes and walk away, annoyed at me for not responding. She didn't; she just fixed me with an expectant look. Finally, I blurted, "She deserves better than me."

"What?"

"I suck. Even when I'm trying, I'm pathetic. This girl is so…" I wasn't used to praising people. At all. "Good. She's everything that's _good,_ Steph. And I'm everything that's not."

She was quiet for a moment, thinking, before she asked, "You're worried about disappointing her, aren't you?"

"Worried? No. That would imply that I thought it might _not_ happen. It's a matter of _when_."

"Kim…"

"No, Steph. I'm a frigid bitch and… she should find someone else who knows how to have 'fun' like she wants. Who can do this right instead of blundering around in the dark. But how do you tell somebody they need to go the fuck away for their own good without making them feel like it's their fault instead? Because I can't hurt her. That's not allowed."

"Hey." Her face was full of pity, and I hated it, I wanted to deck her to the floor to keep that look from existing. Wanted to deck myself, but that's pretty hard to do. "You're not a bad person."

"Yes, I am."

"You are n-"

This time, I did push her away, backing toward the front door. My heart was pounding a million times a minute, and I wanted to scream a million things, but they were mostly at myself and she didn't deserve that headache.

"I'm gonna split. See you later."

She was trying to tell me something as I left, but I blocked it out, I ran. All I could see was the pity in her eyes, the pity in my girlfriend's when she saw how guilty I felt about Julie's aunt's. I wanted to drink to forget, but I _couldn't_ let myself get that drunk ever again. What if next time, I did something worse? I'd be no better than the guys I had dumped who got too handsy.

I'd be no better than the guys who dumped _her_ for something she had no control over. Who didn't see just how great she was.

Halfway to the bus stop, I collapsed. Curled into a ball on the grass and cried, but it wasn't the same kind of cry. This was… something else. I don't know, but I wanted all the pain to end. Sure, I wanted to be better, but I didn't see a way to make that happen, so I just wanted it all to be over. For Knives to find someone who could treat her like a star, give her moonbeams in a jar, and to forget about that asshole she briefly thought was "cool".

Which all sounds way over the top and emo. I know. My brain couldn't quite process that I was in love with her and that was _why_ I wanted to give her everything. Guess one of the shapes love can take is self-destruction.

~ o ~

Young Neil was the one who found me and brought me back to the Nordegraf home. He was walking home from the bus stop, so of course we would cross paths. When he first saw a statue curled up on the grass, he probably thought somebody had really fucking odd taste in lawn ornaments. But I mean, he hung around with Sex Bob-omb while we practiced for a long time; he recognised my face. Then somehow managed to drag me the couple of blocks back to her house from there.

Steph was still shocked when she saw me as a stone figure again, despite it being the second time. She called Stephen, who came over right away with one of those bottles of Soft. But this time…

"It didn't work."

That was all he could manage to say at first, eyes round and jaw agape. Steph and Neil had been pacing back and forth behind him, but once he said that she bent down and squinted at my face. "Shit."

"This… I don't know, why didn't it work? Wake up, wake up, wake UP!" He punctuated the last part by slapping my face, which I couldn't feel. "OW!"

"Don't be dumb!" Steph hissed, standing back from my perch on the couch. "What do we do?"

"No idea, but we can't leave her like this forever, right? I mean… look how upset she was, look at her eyes!"

Neil shrugged as they panicked. "Didn't you say this happened before?"

"It did, but we had Soft, and we got to her quicker," Steph told him, smoothing her hand over my hair. Just as unyielding as the rest of my body. "It was about two hours after she left here that you found her, I think…"

"Shit," Stephen breathed, hand pressed into his mouth. "This is a nightmare."

"We have to call Knives. I mean, she's really important to Kim now, we can't-"

"Knives?" Neil whispered, shocked out of his usual silence. "Oh…"

Both of them looked toward him, but it was Stephen who snapped, "What? This isn't as important as whatever your deal with her was, is that it?"

"N-nah, nevermind. Just call her." He sounded faintly embarrassed, but I couldn't see him from my vantage point so I didn't have the visuals to confirm that.

So they called Knives. Now I felt even worse than I did before. The whole reason I was a statue in the first place was because of my guilt over not being able to give Knives everything she deserved, and now here I was putting her through an even worse ordeal. Along with all of my friends. I used to really think that everyone else was the problem, that they all just sucked. But it was me. I'm the weakest link in the chain.

I heard some pleasantries exchanged at the door, quick ones due to the crisis. Once Knives got to the living room, she gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

"Yeah. We don't really have an idea of what else to do." Glancing over at Stephen, who only shook his head, Steph shrugged and went on, "You probably don't, either, but… we thought you should at least be here."

"Thanks for calling. God… my poor Kim…" She dropped to her knees next to the couch and caressed my face, and I would have given anything to actually be able to feel it. "And you said Soft didn't work? I have more…"

Stephen shook his head. "Don't know, but it really seems like it doesn't. We can try another bottle but I hate to waste it if this time we know it's not going to work…"

"Do we, though? Do we _know_ it won't work?" Steph's hands were on her hips as she glanced between the two of them. "Seriously, I'll dump a dozen bottles on her head if it's going to do the job."

"No… I think I know what we need. Do you see that?" Her finger was pointing to my stomach, just barely revealed by my shirt riding up before it turned to stone along with the rest of me. "That's the key."

Everyone watched Knives stand up after that announcement. Including me, since I really didn't have any choice but to watch, given that my eyes were frozen open by concrete. After a few seconds, Neil hesitantly asked, "Um… what?"

"We need to go see my father."

 _To Be Continued…_


	18. Chapter 18

NOTES: NaNoWriMo is in full swing! I told you I would try my best to update while it's going on and I will, even though it's obviously not as frequent as other months. Enjoy!

* * *

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Yeah, I have no idea what went on over at the Chau residence. They took a few pictures of me on their phones to at least have examples ready, but it would have been pretty annoying to stick me in the back of the car — and besides, Stephen made a really good point that I might shatter if they dropped me, so after that nobody much wanted to take responsibility for schlepping the stone girl around.

But I got the general synopsis of what I missed from listening to their chatter. And thank GOD I finally had some entertainment, because lying around in an empty house all by yourself when you can't move is just about the most boring fucking thing ever.

Knives had her mom translate for her, since she can't speak Chinese, and asked her father if he knew any way to undo a spell, or curse, or mutation, or whatever the fuck this was that made people turn into rock-people. At first he said something a teensy bit racist that nobody would repeat, and then he asked for how the symptoms started. When they explained that it started from a feeling, and showed him the pic of my stomach, he kind of figured out what she would need.

Apparently, the house was quiet for so long because they had to go back to that place where Scott got the Soft and head to "Giant World", whatever that means. When they came back, they had another potion that was supposed to do something else. All I got was its name, not what it was supposed to do.

"So once Knives takes the Micron, we'll all stand watch," Steph was saying. Being a little older than everybody but Wallace — when did _he_ show up? — she had kind of elected herself in charge. Also, nobody else wanted to be in charge, anyway. "Take turns. Like, I'm not sure what we can do, but we have to be ready just in case…"

"How long do we think this is gonna take?" Wallace asked, glancing at his trendy chronometer. "I'm supposed to meet up with Mobile at the new club where the Rockit used to be. Supposed to be a _lot_ more catered toward our particular tastes now."

Knives's bottom lip quivered. "You don't care what happens to Kim, do you?"

"In an overall sense? Sure I do… but you guys didn't even remember my birthday. Tit for tat, you know."

"Hopeless," Stephen sighed. "No wonder Joseph hates you."

His trim eyebrow went up very slightly. "That catty bitch hates everyone. Can we get down to business? Kim's life hangs in the balance, just like my punctuality. They're both pretty important. Besides, I'm the only one here who can feed Knives any _chi_ once she's through the gates; you need me as an E Tank."

"Fine!" Huffing, Knives grabbed the potion and downed it in one gulp. There were a few gasps, and Steph said something about "but we weren't through planning!" but it was too late; she had taken the plunge. And I was kinda glad, because at least now I would get to find out what the hell they were talking about, since they were leaving out so many details due to not bothering to include me in their conversation.

Not that I could talk back, anyway. But I could _hear._

At first, we thought nothing had happened. Then I could tell something was weird. Everybody in the room was getting taller! Wait, that wasn't it… Knives was getting shorter. And shorter… she was _shrinking_ right in front of my eyes.

"Hurry!" Stephen hissed, and Steph picked her up and sat her on my stomach once she was about toddler-sized. She kept going, slipping down my stomach when she was about the size of a Lego figurine, and then I couldn't see her anymore on the other side of my boobs.

At first, I thought that was it; that she had disappeared, and I felt a panic that I couldn't properly express while held suspended in this pavemential state of being. What the fuck had they done to my girlfriend?! But then I saw Steph bend down and do something else, holding her hand against my stomach.

"Hurry up… oh God, I hope Wallace knows how to use that thing."

WHAT thing?

"Me, too," he sighed as he pulled on the red fingerless glove. "Seems simple enough."

Shit. _That_ thing. And I couldn't even scream as he slapped me in the forehead.

~ o ~

When I woke up, I didn't know where I was. I mean, I was definitely nowhere I had ever been before, and I kind of accepted that much… but still, why was the sky all pink? Why was the ground day-glow blue? Why was the path leading into the far distance so gold and shiny? Why was everything moving a little, like I was actually living _inside_ a heat haze? Just freaking psycho crap.

And there she was.

"Knives!" At first she didn't turn around, but when I shouted again, she finally did — and took a huge leap backward.

"AAAAHHH! A GHOST!"

"A what?" Looking down, I saw that I was half-invisible, and my legs disappeared into a wispy thingy. Reminded me of an actual cartoon ghost, but the tops of my legs were still pretty distinct. "Oh. Well, that's annoying."

Her hand reached out, drew back again, and then reached forward to touch my legs… and she passed right through. She shivered as she whispered, "Whoa."

"Yeah, um, don't do that again."

"Okay. Oh, Kim! I'm so glad you're okay! Kind of!" She moved to hug me, then remembered and drew back again. "Oh, oops. Sorry."

"It's okay. God… I'm such a mess, I didn't mean to make everybody… well, anyway, it's too late now. What are we doing here?"

"Huh? Oh, right! You know, that whole thing you told me about? We have to fix that or we can't reverse this, since we didn't get to it in time. So I took the Micron because I'm the one with the most training, and my dad has this thing in Brazil he has to take care of so he can't."

"What? I mean… damn, how long do you think we might be in here?"

Looking apologetic, she whispered, "He said… maybe a couple years?"

"YEARS?!"

"Or not! It could only take a few hours, if we don't get hung up on the Rubik's Cube."

"Rubik's-" Only then did I catch on. My eyes narrowed in utter disbelief, waiting for her to yell "PSYCH" or something, but she didn't. "Wait. You're talking about all that bullshit I spewed at you when we first started hanging out again, aren't you?"

"Yeah! I mean, I'm ready for the rhino and the warthog, I'm pretty sure, but the rest I'll… have to… what is it, Kim?" she asked when she could tell I was even paler than a spirit already would be.

"It was all a lie. I mean… a joke, but I didn't expect you to actually believe me, and I never got the chance to tell you any differently because you ran off." Sighing, I turned away slightly, not wanting to look at her right then. "If this isn't some kind of crazy fever dream, or rock-dream or ghost-dream or whatever, and you're actually trying to fight your way through my body… then I think you're wasting your time. I have no idea what's about to happen to you in here."

"Well, that's okay," she said instantly. "We'll just figure out what the challenges are if they're different. I'm even stronger than I was before, you know; I kept up my training since all that happened at the Chaos Theater. Knives Chau is buff and knows her stuff!"

Gritting my ghostly teeth, I hissed, "Don't you get it? I want you to leave. Stop trying to help me, I'm obviously more trouble than I'm worth. Just… just go."

For a few seconds, everything was quiet. Then I saw her walking down the road into the distance. I was relieved for just a second; relieved and sad. At least Knives would be okay.

Then she called back to me, "You coming, or are you just gonna hang around here in the middle of your stomach?"

Once I caught up, trying not to let my pleased smile be seen by anyone, I asked her, "Stomach?"

"Sure. The portal is in your belly button; the only way in past the stone. Well, we could have tried your ears or nose, but the journey to your heart would have been a little longer, and we couldn't be sure of the path. This seems like a straight shot."

"Oh. Well… I mean, um… I don't really get this. Why are you trying so hard for me? I suck as a girlfriend, and I suck as a friend. All I did was kind of… hang around you and be grumpy all the time. Then statue-ified myself. "

That got her to stop walking and blink at me a few times. "You really think that's all you gave me, Kim?"

"Well… yeah."

"Don't be dumb. You were so sweet."

"ME?!"

"Yes, you," she giggled as she resumed, setting a swift pace. Not that I minded, since floating alongside her didn't seem to make me any more or less tired. "Sure, you tried to bury it under like, your whole 'cool' attitude, but I've… never had anybody make me dinner before besides my mom. And you were always there to talk to and you _really listened_ to my babble, and we could always play games or watch TV, and you were so awesome about not rushing me with sex stuff… held my hand. Kissed my cheeks. Made me feel important to you, even though I could tell it was really hard for you to do that. Gosh, Kim, who _wouldn't_ love you?"

For a few minutes, all I could do was float alongside her. Something about this inner-spirit state I was in prevented me from crying, but I definitely wanted to be. Was kind of frustrating, actually, needing that emotional release and being unable to have it. But I certainly had no words to follow up hers with.

When we got to the outer gates, it looked like a giant walled city, and the multiple colours of the doorframe reminded me of Fruit Stripe gum for some reason. Anyway, as I had been worrying about… there were the guards. Giant mutant animals that just barely weren't copies of villains from an old cartoon I loved when I was little.

"Oh wow, okay," she breathed, whipping out a couple of her huge daggers. "Do you know their weaknesses? Because like, if I can stand on that piece of wall and stab down with my weapon continually-"

"Did you say… you love me?"

"What? Oh, um… yeah, I think I did? Is that okay?"

My noncorporeal eyes nearly bugged out of their invisible sockets. She started to look even less sure of herself, glancing back and forth between me and the enemies. So I quickly said, "Yeah, yeah. It's great. I mean, uh… sorry. Just never had anyone… say that to me before. Damn."

"Hmmm. Didn't know a ghost could blush."

"What?!"

"Kidding," she giggled just as my hands went up toward my face. "Come on, let's get this done. I want to help you."

Humming to myself, I tilted my head up in their direction. "No idea. But I have this vague feeling that if we kick one of their asses, they'll both go down. Well, if _you_ do. Not sure I'll be much help like this."

"Might as well try it!" Then she started sprinting for them. "HEY YOU GUYS!"

That… was _not_ how I would have handled it.

 _To Be Continued…_


	19. Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

" _Whew!_ Holy cats, I thought I'd never get through that Rubik's Cube…"

My hand came up to push into my face. Not that it really mattered; I could barely feel it. "At least I could kinda help with that one. The other two gates were… yeah, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Kniv-"

"Enough," Knives panted as she wiped the sweat from her brow on her striped scarf. It was pretty weird that she was wearing it in the middle of summer, but I had a feeling it was kind of part of her 'battle outfit' or something. "Didn't I… tell you that I'm… doing this for both of us? Not just you?"

"But watching you stare into the mirror… man, I thought you were gonna turn into that other reflection of you with all the purple buffalo in the background…"

The sweet smile made my pulse race. Somewhere. Not in the body I was in within my body, but the body outside of my… body… this is really annoying to explain, as I have just realised while trying to do so. Point is, seeing her smile makes me smile, too. "Anything for you, Kim Pine. Serious and mysterious."

"Alright, alright. Just try not to get killed or then I'll be _really_ hacked off."

The thing I still couldn't figure out was how I guessed all of this so accurately. Probably something subliminal about it; there's no _way_ it was a coincidence. But everything, the three gates, the rhino and warthog, the high-walled chambers we had to fight our way through, came to pass exactly as I snarked in a would-be joking tone. If I made it a reality by saying it… _man_ did I fuck myself royally.

At this point, Knives and I were at the top of a ledge that ran the entire circumference of a round room, closer to the ceiling. It was over a dozen meters to the ground, and another three or four up to the ceiling from where the walkway was positioned. Once she flipped down into that pit, it would be her against the sixteen-eyed monster that stood between us and the final chamber. Maybe we would luck out and it wouldn't _really_ have a laser cannon in its chest, but after everything I'd seen, that felt like a pretty horrible bet to take.

"We don't even know that getting past this thing will be worth the effort," I whispered. "What are we going to find in the sub-chamber? How is it gonna help me at all?"

"Dunno. Just… okay, should I use the save point? Because the room already locked behind us, and if I need some kind of item that we didn't find on our way here…"

"Right, I know. Like, do we really wanna have to go through the gates all over again if we _don't_ use it?"

"Yeah." Glancing back at the closed-and-shut door, then over at the spinning, glowing book that floated above a magic circle on the floor, she flashed me a huge shrug. "I think I can take him, but like, you're right; do we lock down how far we've come, or give ourselves a way to double back for power-ups?"

Facepalming, which didn't do much since I could see through my hand, I sighed, "Whatever. Just please be careful?"

"Okay. Here goes nothing…"

Knives walked over and touched the save point. Now we were committed. Once the glow faded from her skin, she gave me a thumb's up before leaping down to land in front of the beast.

Watching her at work is like watching Russian ballet, only with green blood spraying everywhere. Darting back and forth, hiding behind pillars to dodge the worst of its needle attacks, and then hopping out to slice it up as much as she could. It smacked her around a few times, but she was doing some pretty decent damage… until it got her with the laser cannon. Then she was fried to ash, and there as nothing I could do…

But wait for her to respawn at the save point. I was a ghost; I didn't affect anything, other than to talk to her and give her ideas.

"Whoa, did… that really happen just now?"

"Man, I'm glad that worked," I told her, feeling like _years_ had been shaved off my afterlife. "I… oh Knives…"

That definitely didn't sound like me, and she noticed, turning back from where she had been approaching the edge of the catwalk. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah. Just… just not ready to see you get hurt. Even if you pop right back in, that was still…"

"But you saw me get beaten up by Gideon before, right? So what's the difference?"

I scoffed. "Didn't have much of a personal investment in you then. And that was scary, too."

"He wasn't a real threat."

"He seemed to beat up Scott pretty thoroughly!"

"Yeah." Her smile was pretty confident, yet somehow still adorable, like she was about to break out into the world's cutest maniacal laughter. "But he's got nothing on me. Be right back."

And she was. I could tell it was almost done for, but then it did a stomp move that knocked her onto her butt. The next stomp squished her flat. But she popped back in thanks to our handy checkpoint and jumped straight back down there again. And again. And again. Eventually, I had to stop watching the moment she bit it or I would have been screaming and sobbing, despite having no physical tears to shed. But each time, she got a little better.

"Dude, give it up. Maybe they can figure out a way to pull you out of here from this save point. Do you have a Wing Bottle, maybe?"

"No… way!" she panted, leaning back against the wall as she caught her breath. Apparently, even though the save point respawned her, it wasn't respawning her stamina entirely. She still needed a break before trying again. "I got this! And… I'm not giving up on you!"

"You should! I'm not worth this! God, I know you want to win, and I think you can, but watching you die over and over is… I hate it!"

Frowning, she pushed off and came over to hug me very briefly. By which I mean she put her arms around my ghostly form and kinda held them there, giving the _impression_ of a hug, which was close enough. "Sorry. I'd hate watching you do that, too… but we gotta win this. And I will; I think I've about got his pattern down. I just have to remember not to tuck-and-roll at that moment when I think I need to again, and I'll be good."

"Did you notice what he does before he fires off the canon? The way his top two eyes blink?"

"What? No, I didn't! Okay, that'll really help, because like, I was just waiting to see the chest open and then it's almost too late to duck…" Nodding a couple off times, she then smiled over at me. "Yeah, I'll watch for it. Thanks!"

"What 'thanks'? I'm basically helping you help me. Go on."

The final attempt was a thing of beauty to watch. Knives had that chump on the ropes the whole time, snapping at his tentacles with her blades and ducking out of their reach, away from the needles that shot out of them, and then dodging the laser cannon because of me pointing out the blinking thing. She had a pretty good dodge ratio even before that, but seeing her get out of the way every time was a lot more satisfying. Then, once he did the duck-down halfway through the fight, getting ready to slam, she sliced his stupid wings off and he got pissed the way he does, firing the laser in an up-down pattern that she had to dodge by ducking and then jumping up to grab the ledge. Didn't take much of that for her to wear him down so she could dart in and poke out the last remaining eyes. Once he was blind, all she had to do was stab the crystal on his back and he was down for good.

"YES!" she cheered, falling to her knees. "I… I did it! I did it!"

We both shouted our celebrations for a few seconds as I drifted down, wishing I could hug her. After a few minutes of that I said, "Oh man… what a jerk! If my fist wasn't invisible I would punch him."

"Now?"

"Yeah, now! He messed with my girl!"

Knives's flush took on a different meaning. "Awww, you called me your _girl_. I'm gonna give you so many kisses when you have a face again!"

"I… just… o-okay," I managed to stammer, ignoring her giggle as she started walking. "Wait, shouldn't you go back to the save point?"

"Nah, it's too far up to get to it without timing wall jumps for hours. And anyway, now that I have the pattern down, I can blow through that boss pretty easy if I have to again. Muscle memory, right?"

So I followed her forward into the next chamber. The innermost one, where the "real me" was supposed to be, if this was all coming true as we went. Crazy, but it was hard to argue with the proof when it was right in front of us like that.

This chamber really did look like the inside of a heart. The walls were a dark red, slick and nasty, and in the center was a cage made of stone. We took a quick look around, hoping to spot any crazy vampires or fire-breathing lizard-turtles that would want to kill Knives — and by extension, my chances of being able to move ever again — and saw nothing. So instead, we rushed to see what was in the cage.

It was _me._ Or at least, it was some weird version of me that I could only describe as a princess. Her hair was about half a meter longer and done in some kind of gentle wavy curls that I could never pull off in a million hours of crimping, and she was wearing a white dress that showed off the rack that I don't really have. Her upper arms weren't nearly as jacked as mine are from drumming, but they were still toned. Basically, this was what I would look like if I dieted perfectly, had my own stylist and was also on my way to a debutante ball or whatever.

"AGAIN?!" I yelled, gesturing at the tiny prison. "Can I ever _not_ be in cages?!"

"Oh!" Princess Pine gasped when she spotted Knives. "You have come for me, Prince Chau!"

"Prince?" Knives muttered with a frown.

"Yes! You are the prince and I am the princess, waiting f-"

" _She's not a dude!"_ I shouted in my best heckling voice. What the hell was this supposed to be? I was instantly offended by her very existence.

"I'll not hear a word from you, pretender!" she said, voice somewhere between angry and frightened. "The NegaKim must be vanquished!"

For a few seconds, we just blinked at her. It was me who asked, "The what?"

"NegaKim! 'Tis you who has been in charge of my body, stealing everything I could have done for night a decade of years! A shame and a disgrace to my face!"

"Wait," Knives put in, holding up a hand. The other one was still holding a dagger; she wanted to be at least semi-prepared for a sudden attack. "What are you talking about, 'NegaKim'?"

"She is NegaKim! I am the real Kim Pine, of course! Forced into this Gorgon Maiden by nefarious means, kept prisoner by the evil twin-spirit who took over my physical form! While my prince wasted her efforts on her, when I would have been much more appreciative!" She was still talking with all that righteous fire, but saying that last part I could see her blush a lot worse than I usually did. And it looked better on her. Goddamn it, I couldn't even be the hottest version of Kim Pine, which _really_ rankled.

Knives had a different observation. "Well, at least she's getting the pronouns right…"

"Listen, you," I growled angrily. "Fuck the hell off. It's my body, I've had it for twenty-five years, and I'm not handing it over to some… frilly, froofy cunt!"

That gave her one of those affronted faces you only see in movies set in the 1800s. After she recovered, she hissed, "You'll regret this! I don't know how, but you will, I'll…" There were tears in her eyes. This was pretty legit for a fake-ass bitch trying to steal my spot in life. Her fists were trying to rattle the bars of her little cage as she shouted, "I'm going to get out of here, I swear it!"

"Okay, okay," Knives hissed, raising her hand again to encourage her to calm down. "What if we get you out, and you can go away somewhere else? Isn't that a good, like… compromise? OH! What if we got a robot-Kim, and you could go live in there?"

"My prince… can't you see that I am your intended?" she pleaded with her, leaning so far against the bars that her face was trying to push between them. "Not her, _me!_ She will hurt you, but I would cradle your heart as if a baby bird! I… all I want is to make you happy!"

Everyone was quiet for a few seconds. I turned back to Knives and shrugged. "Well? She's the girl of your dreams. All the freckles, and none of the acid-tongue. Plus she's way cuter."

"Nah," Knives said without any hesitation. "I know who I love, and it's you. This is some other test and I'm gonna pass this one, too. And the next one, and the next, until I break you out and we can both go get sushi or something."

As I was grinning at her, beyond any level of love for her that I had previously thought possible, I dimly noticed Princess Pine collapsing on the floor in a flurry of sobs. Oh well, too bad. Better luck next time. As we were sharing that moment, someone came along to interrupt it…

"How dare you thwart my plans! I've been waiting for this to come to fruition for seven years!"

If my face could have paled any further than ghostly white, it would have.

"Simon Lee."

 _To Be Continued…_


	20. Chapter 20

NOTE: "It's the CLIMAX!" - Haruko, FLCL (as in story climax; there are a few more chapters after this)

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CHAPTER TWENTY

Actually, it wasn't Simon Lee. What I mean is, it was the crazy psycho evil Simon Lee from Scott's memories and from my annoying dreams on nights where I couldn't sleep. The real one was just this nerdy little Chinese kid I almost-kinda dated before I met Scott. Shortish, wearing thick glasses, kind of a dick but not really a threat to anyone.

This dude in the purple tracksuit was seven feet tall and limber, with gently-windswept brown hair and a much trendier pair of glasses perched on his smug nose. His hands were in his pockets, as if completely casual and disinterested in anything we had to contribute, but the fury in his eyes and the way he had shouted definitely said otherwise. Somehow, he wasn't that intimidating, despite the size and everything. I mean, Knives had just taken apart a monster _much_ more huge than him all on her own, right? This chump didn't stand a chance.

"Surprised you remember," he spat back at me as he strode closer to the cage, laying a hand on one of the bars. To her credit, Princess Pine looked afraid of him; at least she didn't somehow find him attractive despite the fact that he was a douchebag. "After all, apparently Pilgrim wasn't good enough for you, either. Why such high standards? Gingers don't even have souls, much less a right to spurn the advances of someone as majestic as-"

"We don't have souls?" I cut him off, gesturing to my body. "What the fuck do you call this? Maybe you should just leave now, before it gets messier."

Sneering, he nodded at Knives. "You think this he-she will treat you any better? Pathetic."

Even while Knives's face was darkening with mingling anger and shame, I was curling my non-tangible hands into fists. "You… better not… say that again."

"Say what? That she's a freak who thinks owning a few skirts makes her a real girl? Not like you haven't thought it before. I know; I'm _actually living inside your head,_ so there's no sense in trying to hide the tru-"

"NOPE. I meant it, you fucktard. Get out of my head. _Now."_

The bars of the cage were as solid as ever… but something was happening to Princess Pine. Most of her fear and her cowering had subsided, and now she was sitting on the floor of her prison, looking up at him with white-hot fury in her every pore. Neither one of us were happy with the way he was speaking about Knives. It pissed me off that I wouldn't be able to hit him the way I was, but that didn't matter. I was just angry and She-Hulk wanted to smash.

"Do you… really think I'm a freak?"

Instantly, I forgot about Simon and turned back to Knives. "No. God, no! I mean, maybe I did right when I first found out, but like, people think dumb shit all the time. When we first met, I also wondered if you knew kung fu and drank green tea. And like… you do, but there's also a ton more to you than just being Chinese, so like… you're Knives. Not just Chinese, not just trans, not just any one little byte of data in your profile. You're a whole person. I, um… I get that now in a way I didn't when we met, so…"

"NegaKim is right," the princess assured her, again trying to push her way out of the bars to get to her 'prince'. "We all have intrusive thoughts we cannot help. But that never stopped me from loving you."

"HEY!" I snapped. "That was my line to say! You don't get to steal my line, faker!"

Knives was looking between the two of us, barely paying attention to Simon. "Wait… you said- I mean, _she_ said that you… I mean, do you?"

When I saw the other Kim opening her mouth to answer, about to beat me to the punch again, I rushed to blurt out, "YES! I love you, Knives, you idiot!"

"That wasn't a very nice way to phrase it," Princess Pine grumbled, annoyed at missing her opening.

"Maybe if somebody gave me a minute to get my thoughts together, I could have put a little more finesse on my declaration, you high-class hologram!"

Finally, Simon chuckled and tried to reinsert himself back into the conversation, arms now folded over his chest as he mimicked an imposing figure next to the cage. "Oh, she's no hologram. You really haven't figured out who she is, have you?"

"Shut up, Mr. Velour. Women are talking."

"Why you little-"

"Let me out of here!" the princess hissed. "I can help you defeat him! Together, we will, we must!"

"How ungrateful!" he burst out, turning to shout at her. "I gave you meaning again, drew the host's attention to you, and this is how you repay me? The thanks I get! Well, forget this! I'm bringing it all down!"

As I started to ask Knives if she could just cut him to pieces and we could skip this whole cutscene, he began to grow. Like, in a Power Rangers kind of fashion. Seven feet became eight, then nine, then about ten when he stopped, rippling muscles threatening to burst the threads of his tracksuit. In fact, the front did rip open to reveal his pecs and abs, which might have been attractive if I were a little straighter, and if they weren't bright red and abnormal. At the same moment, he reached behind himself to retrieve a giant golden axe, glowing with unnatural might.

"Fuuuuck me," I breathed.

"Quick!" my copy was hissing at us, reaching a hand through the bars. "Don't any of you have a bottle of Soft? It can turn these bars back and we can cut through them easily!"

"Why, what are they made of?" Knives demanded as she got both of her weapons back out, readying to do battle.

"Skin! I mean, where do you think you are? Everything in here is skin!"

Both myself and Knives exchanged a disgusted glance. But we didn't even have a chance to brace for impact, or to try to strategize further. Even as we looked on, a giant green pipe appeared coming out of the ceiling, and out fell…

Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers.

Of all the people in the known universe, there they were, in my heart-chamber-thing. Scott was hanging onto a bright pink parasol and Ramona's arms and legs were wrapped around his front as they slowly drifted downward, eyes wide as they stared at the scene they had stumbled into. Ramona looked about the same, except half of her hair was pink and the other half green, which really looked kind of hideous but it would probably be different next week, anyway. Her fishnets were ripped in a few places, and her heavy-duty blue rollerblades were probably close to being retired, but otherwise she looked good, I guess. Whatever.

There was something else about Scott I noticed right away.

"Dude, you're _bald._ "

"Hey to you, too, Kim!" he called down, and he actually sounded like his usual cheerful self. "What's new?"

"What's- Scott, seriously? It's time for a casual game of catch-up right now? _Right now?"_

Ramona cleared her throat and said, "I think she means the big purple-suited dude."

"Oh." They touched down with barely a noise, and Scott folded up the umbrella. "He must be the next fragment of the Gideonflux."

"The what?" Knives asked. But then she smiled and waved. "And hi!"

He nodded upward as he grinned at her. "Hey!"

"The Gideonflux," Ramona provided. I always admired her ability to actually focus, unlike either of those other two dorks. "The seven remaining pieces of Gideon Graves's telepathic mind that he left behind when we destroyed him a year and whatever ago. You didn't know about it?"

Myself and my 'prince' shook our heads. Princess Pine looked a little guilty, but she didn't respond; probably, she had figured it out, or Simon had been grandstanding and literally told her.

"Anyway, yeah, Scott and I have been trying to track them all down before he rises again. We're on… what is it, three?"

"Four, I thought," Scott answered, rubbing his hand over his oddly-bald head. Still freaking me out.

"Okay, there was the one in the mummy's tomb, the one in the book under that old castle… the one in the Krispy Kreme… what am I leaving out if we got four?"

Scott was thinking too. They were both having a hard time coming up with it. Then he snapped his fingers. "Right! You took care of that one on your own, you didn't wanna talk about it?"

Her lip curled. "Oh yeah. That was nasty. Think I blocked it out… yeah, nevermind, Scott's right; it's four. And Super Simon Lee makes five."

"Wait, how do you figure that?" I demanded. "What does Gideon have to do with Simon?"

"Nothing. Not the _real_ Simon; he's still doing pretty well at his IT job in Vancouver. We had to find out, since the name was our only clue for the next Flux piece," she went on in an undertone, seeing how confused we both looked. "This was something Gideon did to both you and Scott to put you at odds. It didn't really work in Scott's case, since he's kind of a dope. But yeah, when I hopped the highway through his head and saw no sign of Simon, and since we already broke his hold over me a long time ago, there was only one other place we could think of to look."

While Scott pouted, Knives stepped forward and pointed her knife over at Simon. "So he's not real? I can defeat him and not feel bad for beating up a real person?"

"Knock yourself out. And hey, you look pretty good, Knives. Working out?"

"Oh, yeah! Training, you know, all that. Plus I'm using this new moisturizer, it's made from-"

"ENOUGH!"

Everyone turned to look at the clearly-furious fake Simon, who was heaving breaths and glaring icy death at his room full of opponents. Raising the axe high, he sneered at me, "If I can't have you, no one will!"

"Somebody get this asshole a line read," I snarked. "Can you believe what he's spewing? Makes Lucas Lee look like a Tony award winner."

"Let's get him!" Scott shouted. At that instant, a pale blue sword burst from his chest, and he pulled it free as a narrator's echoing voice said, " _Scott earned the Power of Loyalty!"_ while plus-bonuses briefly appeared above his head. Ramona reached into her bag and pulled out her hammer, and Knives crouched down with her blades, ready to pounce on the monstrous inflated form of a former boyfriend that had been twisted by one of Ramona's evil exes into something to keep a piece of my soul trapped within a subchamber inside my chest cavity.

My life is abnormal.

Ramona struck first because he ended up being closest to her, driving the hammer into his knees; he barely flinched before batting her aside, where she flipped to race down the wall on her skates. Scott and Knives double-teamed him, Scott jumping at his back with a downward stab as Knives tried to dart in past his windmilling arms to get him in the chest or the ribs. All attacks thwarted. He didn't beat them back, but he managed to make them dance away to avoid getting hit. When Ramona got to him again, she went for an uppercut and caught a piece of him, but he barely staggered; he seemed more enraged than anything, and grabbed her by the leg, swinging her in a quick circle before letting her go, hurtling toward me.

"I got you!" I cried, opening my arms — and feeling her pass right through them. "I don't got you."

But she was fine, already popping up and motioning for Knives to hop onto her shoulders. She did, and Ramona started racing around Simon in a circle while Scott used the sword to block a few of the energy blasts he sent flying at them. When they got to his side for the fifth time, Knives hopped off and stabbed for his eyes, but he deflected her at Scott, who was just getting to the other side now, sending them both down. He just barely managed to roll out of the way of a foot-stomp, and flashed an upward swipe at the shoulder that managed to score him, but didn't seem to slow him down much.

The fight was going badly. Like, they were doing great, but Super Simon really did just seem impervious to most of the attacks. At this rate, they were going to lose because he would simply wear them out by outlasting their stamina reserves. We had to do something!

"Let me out!" Princess Pine was shrieking at me. "Please!"

"We're a little busy!" I snapped at her impatiently. "God, I'm glad you've been locked up, you whiny piece of-"

"No! You have to let me out, or they can't defeat him!"

Surprised, I floated over to her cage and leaned closer still. "Say that again?"

"Verily! Only through my body will you have the power you need to overcome his defenses! Without this, their efforts will be for naught! And he's already damaged your heart enough as it is!"

"Why do you talk like you're in fucking ' _Twelfth Night'_ or something? And what do you mean, damaged my…"

But even as I said it, I looked around and noticed what she meant. There were several areas in the chamber that looked like they had been hastily repaired. Most of them sturdily, but a few were just a single wooden board pushed up against a gap and nailed into place. Now, there were a few new tears and fractures being made by this epic battle; things that would need fixing up once we defeated him. How did I miss that? Probably too distracted by the whole bizarreness of there being a chamber in my heart that would serve as the stage for the final battle.

"Fine. You're right, I'm an unholy mess. But how is me letting you out going to help? And how do you suggest I do that, anyway? If I can't break this cage, and you can't break it…"

"Trust me."

"I don't! You're trying to steal Knives from me, and you keep calling her a 'prince', and… and I think you're part of Simon's scheme! So thanks, but no fucking thanks!"

Finally, she started to look a little more panicked than simply distraught and angry. "We don't have time! You… you must, or… or we'll lose her!"

It did shoot a pang through me at the thought. But I had faith in Knives. I _knew_ she could defeat Simon, I knew that the other me was totally off the mark. All I had to do was trust in the one who had given me a reason to trust her.

Except then I saw Knives's knives get knocked away, watched her skitter across the floor toward me. Letting out a yelp, I went to drag her into my arms as Ramona and Scott did their best against the behemoth, but it wasn't happening because my arms couldn't do anything. I was useless.

My uselessness was going to get us all killed. While fighting a figment of my imagination.

"I'm sorry," I breathed down at her, watching her dazed eyes trying to focus on my voice. "This is my fault… I couldn't figure out that something was wrong inside me, and now… you have to deal with it, when it's not your fight. Should be mine. Only mine, and only my responsibility to do the clean-up work. But I can't. I'm a piece of shit."

"No, Kim!" she assured me, voice still numb but getting stronger as she started sitting up a little, flashing me her best smile through a black eye that would look way worse in an hour or two. "You're not, don't say that! Nobody could have expected any of this to happen, y'know?"

But I was already feeling that vice-like grip of terror around my heart again. The same way I felt it just before I turned to stone for the last time. As I felt it, I watched Simon growing larger, spikes jutting out from his forearms and shoulders, and Ramona and Scott hopped back to reassess the situation…

And it kind of all clicked into place. The problem wasn't my inadequacy. Wasn't my saltiness or my fear of commitment. Well, the last one was a little closer to the mark: it was my fear. I was being a coward. Being _selfish._

"Okay," I breathed, standing away from her and turning toward the cage. "Enough of my whining."

"Kim?" Already, I had drifted through the bars, curling my lip at the joyful smile Princess Pine was wearing. Using my face for that purpose was just wrong on so many levels. "Kim, wait, what- KIM!"

"If Scott could be big enough to do this… so can I."

Then I started merging with her. Letting my soul get consumed by the annoying, bleeding-heart version of me that I wanted to punch if I could have.

"Don't worry!" Scott was calling out as he leapt over a ground-pound. "It's not as bad as you think it'd be, trust me!"

And he was right. A few seconds later, I had a body again, and I felt almost completely normal… except a little lighter. A little _stronger_ and more full of purpose than I had ever been in my entire life. My hands pushed outward against the bars, and they shattered, freeing me from the prison in which I had never truly been trapped. Only been convinced I was trapped by anxiety and depression, and a deep-seated uncertainty that I could ever fully trust anyone at all.

But I had to. Even if I only trusted Knives, I had to trust someone. And I had decided to try trusting myself for a few minutes, too. Take that for a test drive.

"NO!" Simon growled, then lashed out with his tail — must have missed when that grew in — and knocked away the hammer Ramona had been about to bring down on his head. Loosing a mighty bellow of rage, he initiated a spin move that was deadly from all the spikes, launching himself at Scott…

I called for a weapon. Somehow, I thought if I just made that same kind of self discovery Scott did, I'd get one. Maybe a gun; that'd be cooler than a sword, right? But nope. Nothing came. Still, at least I could help Knives stand up now that I no longer owned ghost-hands.

"Thanks," she whispered, then whipped out a few throwing knives from somewhere or other. "He's mine!"

And on the battle went. It actually took a while, but they seemed to be turning the tide now. Before, it had been a stalemate, but in some small way, I think me breaking out of the cage shook Super Simon's confidence. Or maybe the cage was some kind of energy siphon and me breaking out my other self really did lower his regeneration stats, which was why each hit they landed dealt more damage now. Whatever. The point is, a few minutes later, he was starting to stagger, his attacks were sluggish and dumb, and missed pretty often now. Somewhere in there, he managed to destroy Scott's sword and it turned into a dozen little ghostly dog bones before they vanished, but he grabbed one of Knives's daggers from the corner and tossed her the other one, and they made it work with those.

Finally, they had him on his knees, wrists tied with Knives's scarf and Ramona's hammer weighing his head down so he could only barely glare up at us. He looked even more demonic than before, teeth jagged and eyes blazing red. He chuckled darkly.

"You can't kill me, Kim." I was holding his own golden axe high above my head, ready to strike. "I'm a part of you now. I'll always be a part of your nightmares. Killing this form of mine will solve nothing."

"Maybe, maybe not. But I'm tired of looking at your fucking face!"

His head came clean off, spraying the same green blood everywhere that the other monster had, before his body burst into coins. We all glanced at each other, surprised at how sticky and nasty it felt. Scott was the first to laugh.

"Well, that was a thing."

"Doof," Ramona snorted, though it was clearly with a fond tone. Sighing, she turned to me and frowned. "Sorry about the mess. This has been some of the hardest resistance we've ever had to recovering one of these."

As she was saying it, I watched Scott stoop to the floor where the body had been to pick up a little triangular "G", like the logo on the doors of the Chaos Theater. It glittered an oddly sinister green, but I only had a second to wonder about that before he popped it into his jeans pocket and out of sight.

"Uh… yeah." Clearing my throat, I said, "This is probably asking a lot, but if you guys can help me clean up? I mean, otherwise it'd probably take years…"

"Sure," Scott said at once, pocketing some of the coins, as well. I noticed both Knives and Ramona already were, too. "Where's your mop?"

"Really? Just like that?"

Scott stood up a little more fully and shrugged. "Hey, I kinda owe you a little repair work. Especially here, since I'm pretty sure a few of these holes are my fault."

Had me there. Normally, I would have said that he was a dick, or just scoffed and turned away. But I found myself saying, "Yeah, probably. I have a lot of healing to do. It's hard work, Scott."

His smile finally slipped off. But he didn't do much else, only shrugged and kicked at a little blob of slime-blood. "Yeah."

"But I can do the repairs myself. Just help me clean up this mess and we'll go back to working through our own drama."

"Can do, Kim. But hey, if you ever need a hand…"

"Thanks, but…" I caught Knives before she could walk past, holding her hand up. "Already have one."

"Really?" he piped up, the smile springing back to full force. "That's awesome! Wondered if anything was gonna come of that."

"What?" Knives asked, shocked. "You mean, you knew about it? I didn't tell anybody!"

"Well, I kinda walked in on you guys," he admitted with a shy little laugh, scratching the back of his head. "At Julie's aunt's, we were all super wasted? Figured it was none of my business, though. But man, you were really making out! Like, a lot!"

Sighing but at least grateful that he wasn't making a huge deal, I glanced at the two of them before I said, "Get used to it, because… I'm in love with her."

The echoey voice said " _Kim earned the Power of Love!"_ and a glittering pink spear came out of my chest, a little taller than me once pulled completely through and with a couple of wicked prongs on either side of the main spearhead. A magnificent weapon. There was only one problem.

"FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!" I shouted at the world in general. "So _now_ I get this! Where was it fucking ten minutes ago when we _needed it?!_ UGH!"

 _To Be Continued…_


	21. Chapter 21

NOTE: I was eating garlic bread while writing this first scene. Truefans will know.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Scott and Ramona made good on their offer to help me clean up Super Simon's super-mess. Unfortunately, they only stuck around long enough to do that because they had to move on to find the next piece of the Gideonflux. Or the next Gideonflux? I wasn't clear on whether or not that was the name of each thingy or the whole of them once collected. Either way, we hugged and said our goodbyes once the slime was gone.

"Look me up sometime," Ramona whispered into my ear as we hugged. "If you're ever on Alpha Centauri, or in the States. I tend to hang out there mostly."

"Probably not happening. I've had enough excitement for a while."

"Totally understandable." Then she moved on to hug Knives while I turned to Scott.

"So… um, do you still play?"

He shrugged and gave a quiet laugh. "We both know I suck. And not just at the bass guitar." It was quiet for a moment. "I was expecting you to say 'yeah, you do, Scott'."

"Mm. Just didn't feel like saying it. You helped me clean up in here, and were pretty cool about me coming out just now. Helps a lot."

"Did you come out? Oh… yeah, I guess so. I mean, maybe living with Wallace kind of did that thing."

"That thing?"

"You know, the thing where you aren't surprised by certain kinds of stuff anymore."

"Desensitised you?"

"That's it."

Nodding a little, I glanced over at where Ramona and Knives were chattering away like old friends, even though they had once been bitter rivals for Scott's affections. "Shit changes. Easier to just roll with it."

"Kind of my motto lately, too," he admitted with a little chuckle. Then he frowned. "Kim?"

"Yes?"

"The bald look sucks, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"Right. I dunno, I got a little of it chopped off with a buzz saw from a sub-boss, and I kept trying to even it out, and Ramona walked in to see I already completely shaved it off. So I've been trying to rock it, but… yeah, she agrees with you. I'll grow it back out."

"You'll survive the stubbly stage," I snorted. "Anyway… uh, take it easy, Pilgrim."

"You too, Princess Pine."

"Shut the fuck up and go."

Once they got back to the subspace pipe in the ceiling, they waved over their shoulders, and Knives and I waved back. Then Ramona took his hand and they jumped upward into the pipe and out of our lives forever. Or, y'know… for a long time, anyway. The pipe was gone, too; just vanished into the mystic.

After staring after them for a long moment, Knives turned to beam up at me. "You're in _loooove_ with me, huh?"

"You can shut the fuck up and go, too," I grumbled, which didn't affect her in the slightest. She only leaned up and kissed my cheek, which made me roll my eyes but I still couldn't help the little smile on my face. "Bleh. Should we try to do any more repairs in here? Or what?"

"Dunno. But you look really cute in that dress. Kinda distracting."

"Huh?" Glancing down, I saw that the 'princess dress' my other self had been wearing was still on me. "Oh, great. I look like a bridal reject."

"You look _beautiful_. Like… honestly, when we get back, I really want to see you in stuff like this more often. But only if you want to!" she added as her smile vanished, worried I would be mad. But I wasn't; just surprised.

"Really? You like me all girled up? I figured it would help if I was the more 'butch' of the two of us. Like… I know you act like it isn't important, but it is. To both of us. You're my girlfriend, and everyone else is gonna see you that way."

A little shrug of one shoulder tried to say that she didn't mind, but her smile gave away how pleased she was that I had thought about that. "Nah. I like who I am and how I look; pretty confident in that. But I would probably dress extra girly if you were extra girly, so we could be lipstick lesbians together."

"Aww," I said with a little snort, and we both giggled. "Is it weird that I find that idea cute? It's cute, right?"

"Totally cute! And we can be super butch one day, and all the days between we can just… be us."

"Yeah," I whispered as I picked up my spear and we headed for the entrance. Almost more to myself than to her. "Us."

~ o ~

To summarise, I walked her all the way back to the Belly Button Portal and let her get sucked back up and out. Then I was kind of by myself and not sure of what to do. This was different from the dream-slash-flashback; now I was just kinda hanging out in my own stomach. How did I get myself into these messes?

But then I felt myself being called upward. It was kind of rude, my feet were sucked into the air first and I had to hold my dress down to keep it from falling up around my head — even though there was nobody around to see my underwear anyway. Then I was leaving my inner plane behind…

When I 'woke up' an instant later, I was lying on the sofa in the same curled-up position that I was in when I turned to stone. Everybody was gathered around who had been there when I was smacked with the glove, though a couple of them were seated or in different positions. Steph had changed into a different shirt at some point. Wallace was taking off a blue fingerless glove and tossing it casually on the coffee table, as if he did this kind of thing every day. When she noticed my eyes were open, Knives grinned at me and helped me sit up.

"Hey," she said in a gentle voice.

"How do you feel?" Stephen asked, brow furrowed as he felt my forehead. "Like, feverish or anything?"

"I'm fine, you jerk," I sighed as I slapped his hand away. "And that's for smacking me while I was a statue."

Clearly anxious, Steph crouched down next to me. "You okay? I mean… seriously, are you?"

"Yeah. Just really… man, that was _weird._ But I'm gonna be just fine now. Promise." My eyes found those of my girlfriend, my 'prince' and my ninja saviour, and drew her in close to me. "Pleased as punch."

The minute our lips met, in front of God and everybody, Wallace let out a long sigh. "Well, this is my cue to exit. Glad to lend my _chi_ and expertise but I'm not much for girl-on-girl. Or girl-on-anything."

"Thanks for the boosts," Knives giggled as she turned back, though she was still half-lying on top of me. I didn't mind at all. "Helped with the sub-boss and final boss a lot. You wanna hang out sometime?"

"Why? You know any more boys with glasses?" Then he let out a _tsk_ of mild annoyance. "Oh yeah, crap… steady boyfriend. I'm off the market; looking, no touching. Which reminds me that Goodhandy's awaits, so-"

"I meant to just like, chill and have fun together? Unless you don't wanna… it's fine."

"We're hanging out," I told Wallace in a stern, no-arguments-allowed tone. I could tell Knives was already doubting herself from his spurning of the offer, and that wasn't allowed.

"Fine, so we'll hang out," he grumbled with a roll of his eyes as he got to the front door. "Anywhere with a liquor licence. Goodnight, kids." And with that, he shuffled out.

"Yeah, I should go, too," Stephen said as he stood. "But seriously, I'm really glad you're okay, Kim. We should, uh, jam together sometime; I know we have a regular drummer but you're every bit as good-"

"Don't stroke my ego, Stills. But… yeah, could be fun."

Knives giggled as she hugged me a little before jumping to her feet excitedly. "Maybe we could get Sex Bob-omb back together! I mean, we just saw Scott, and the rest of the band's right here! Even Neil!"

"U-uh, yeah," Neil said, glancing nervously at Knives. I could tell he still felt really awkward about how things ended. Good. Fucking needed to own up to what he did.

In fact, I decided that needed to happen right away. Without another word, I hooked a hand around his upper arm and started dragging him to the kitchen. "Thanks for hauling me back here," I said as we entered.

"Sure, yeah. I couldn't just leave you out-"

"Okay, listen," I hissed once we were around the corner. "You're a nice kid, salt of the earth, blah blah blah. But I think you owe Knives an apology for how you ended things."

Caught off guard, he cleared his throat and looked away. "W-why? You're with her now, and like… that works out. For you two, I mean."

"If you're talking about her junk, that's not important to me. Maybe it'll 'work out', maybe not. But you kind of made her feel like crap about that. I know it's not the only reason you broke up, but it's part of it and you should maybe own up to how shitty you handled things."

"Oh. Well…" Swallowing hard, he looked down at the floor. "Yeah, I was really, uh, surprised. But I still thought she was great! Just, like… I couldn't handle it. Made me feel really uncomfortable, and like…" His voice got quieter, and I could tell this wasn't the easiest thing in the world for him. Especially Neil, who wasn't used to talking a lot. "I didn't want to hurt her any worse so I broke it off and tried to, uh, let her down easy. Besides, I knew she was still into Scott, and kind of crushing on Stephen. I was just kinda… there."

"What did you say? I mean, the way you 'let her down easy' is just as important as the fact that you tried. Which yeah, I guess is pretty decent."

"Just that, um, I didn't think I could handle it if we ever went past kissing. But that I hoped she found a guy who's less, uh… weird about that. I dunno, she's just really special, and I felt dumb for being hung up on… on _pants stuff."_

Even though 'pants stuff' was a ridiculous and hilarious way to phrase it, I couldn't help sympathising. Maybe I got over it where Neil couldn't, but we both had that moment of surprise, and the discomfort right after. But the average dude tends to have that latent homophobia thing going on, that even if they kind of grow and learn they still feel weird about anything intimate involving another guy. Or in this case, another _person_ who happens to have a dick. Guess it wasn't fair to punish Neil _too much_ for being average.

"Alright, I get you. But you should still apologise. Not in public, but like… I think she'd really feel better if you just said something. Knives is definitely special, and very sensitive, and deserves the best." After a brief pause, I added, "Maybe I'm a little biased, but you know I'm right."

Nodding, he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Yeah. Just wasn't something I could handle when she told me, but like… it's not about who she is. At all! Because she's awesome. I'm really glad you two are like, so close now."

"Dating. You can say we're dating."

"Yeah, that. Girlfriends or whatever. It's cool."

Rolling my eyes, I went back into the living room. I guess "it's cool" was the best I could expect and it was a positive sign. I saw Knives look up, then past my shoulder at Neil, and then she patted me on the hip and smiled at me as she walked past; I guess he planned to do it literally right away.

"Wow," Steph sighed as she slumped down on the couch. I hit it with her, and Stephen on my other side.

"Yeah. Wow."

"What was it like in there? I mean… you kind of act like you could tell. That whole glove thing."

"You at least knew what we were doing when you were a statue," Stephen said in a grumbling voice.

"Yeah. Uh… the statue thing was more annoying than anything, but I'd already been through something like that with the glove before. The rest…"

Where the fuck do you even start with a story like this?

~ o ~

About two hours later, Knives and I excused ourselves from the Nordegraf ancestral home and went back toward my place. It was pretty late — well actually, early. The thing took all night. Felt pretty bad for all our friends, but at least it made sense of why Steph had changed her shirt. Both of us called off work as we walked, knowing we had been through _way_ too much crap to bother with focusing on annoying customers for one day.

"Can't believe I have this whole other plane of existence in my ribcage," I muttered as we walked. "There's a John Mayer joke in there somewhere."

"What?" Knives laughed. I didn't bother to explain, and she didn't bother to ask again. "Anyway, I'm just glad we did it. You were stone for so long…"

"Yeah. Well, I guess that won't be happening anymore."

"Really? So… you think taking care of Super Simon fixed it?"

With a long sigh, I stared up at the sky as we walked. Putting one thought in front of the other. "He wasn't the real problem. It was me. Gideon took advantage of it, but the… Fluxy thing wouldn't have worked if I wasn't already broken inside. But yeah, I'm not going to be 'rocking out' anymore."

My shy smile lingered for a few seconds. Nervous that the joke was too stupid. This time, Knives definitely caught the pun and groaned, bumped her hip into mine as we walked. And I laughed. I really laughed… it felt weird and wrong, but I told myself not to worry about that.

"I like that."

"What, shitty puns?"

"No. You laughing. It's a great laugh."

"I sound like a coughing parrot."

"Nah," she giggled, lacing her fingers through mine and pulling me over to kiss my cheek. "Just because I can tell you're out of practice doesn't mean I can't hear how beautiful it's gonna be when you figure out I'm not gonna make fun of you for laughing."

God, why did my cheeks have to be so hot? "Y-yeah. Um… I guess I could blame Princess Pine for that."

"What do you mean?"

"The part of me that we set free. I mean… it's a bunch of metaphorical bullshit, but with our lives as fucked up as they are…" Sighing, I came to a stop, leaning my back against a telephone pole. "She was the real me, yeah. I guess that's true. Thing is, the other me was the real me, too. A NegaKim that I let take control because Princess Pine couldn't handle how much pain she was in after… Scott. But they weren't really that different from each other, so instead of extremes like 'black and white' or 'hot and cold', it's more like… 'mildly warm and slightly chilly'. NegaKim was stronger in some ways, and I needed her to help me stay alive. Problem was, she's not very good at taking the steps to heal, so I kinda got stuck in this limbo. Not getting worse, but not getting better, either."

"Ohhh," was all she breathed. But she was listening with rapt attention, rocking back and forth on her boots as I babbled. "Then you made the cage yourself?"

"Maybe. Probably a combination of me and the Gideonflux. Like, that I gave it the power to really lock down my lighter side, or whatever. Like I said, metaphorical shit. But now that she's out, it's… not as hard to get closer to you."

Her body curled around mine, and I felt a little flutter. Call me a closet case if you want, but it still felt crazy being all affectionate with her in public. Now I was willing to let it happen, though. Princess Pine was part of me again and she gave me a different kind of power.

The power of love. It's a curious thing.

"NegaKim was actually doing pretty good at that before, y'know. I never felt like you were being mean just to be mean. Only that you were having trouble opening up."

"Bet you didn't suspect it was a fragment of Ramona's ex to blame," I snorted, and she laughed as she nuzzled my collarbone. "Jesus, what a crazy night."

After a moment's indecision, Knives took a step back, pulling my hands a little to get me to stand up. Then she held them out for a second before dropping them, and I kept them in that position with my eyebrows raising. After a slight crouch, she hopped up into my arms.

" _HNGG!_ What are you doing?!"

"Letting you carry me home," she tittered, arms wrapping tightly around my neck as I threatened to buckle under her.

"Thought I was supposed to be the princess and you the prince. Gender-nonspecific prince," I added hastily. Didn't seem to have bothered her in the slightest, if the kiss to my nose was any indicator.

"We're whatever we want to be. C'mon, let's go!"

God, she felt so good. Didn't have the heart to drop her, even if my back wasn't thrilled with hauling her all the way back to my place. Just didn't want to let her go.

 _To Be Concluded…_


	22. Chapter 22

NOTE: As Forkannukkah draws to a close, I give you incoming floof and a _very tiny_ bit of almost-smut. Also for some reason, I was listening to a lot of Rilo Kiley while writing this part, as I normally seem to be; just fit.

And this is not the end! Well… it is, but there's also going to be a bonus smut chapter. But it's entirely optional, and I promise you will miss NONE of the plot if you don't read it; almost more like a PWP oneshot sequel. Anyway, thanks to everybody who liked this fic and read it, I appreciate all of you and hope you enjoyed yourself!

 _Jessex_

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

We crashed hard that night. I mean, morning. By the time we woke up, it was night again; we slept the whole day away. My phone told me that it was after midnight, even. Guess we needed to recover, even though I had been literally still as a statue for most of the ordeal. Mental exhaustion is real.

I woke up first, finding her sweet body next to mine, and I wanted to ravage her with kisses. Which was a lot more forward than I was used to being. The part of me that still wanted to believe that the whole ordeal was a dream quickly gave up; it had never been _this_ easy to be sweet to Knives. Even after we started dating. Again, it wasn't that different from before… just that I could let myself do the things I thought of, instead of angstily talking myself out of lovey-dovey shit.

But I didn't ravage her. Instead, I only kissed her cheek as gently as I could, watching her lips twitch into a sleepy smile before she rolled over and snuggled down into the pillow. Biting my lip to keep from laughing about how cute she was, I bounced out and into the bathroom.

Really bounced. Yes, me. Yes, Kim Pine _bounced._

From there, into the kitchen. Made pancakes. I made coffee and pancakes for my girlfriend, and dumb as it was the whole situation made me blush. By myself! In the kitchen! What a complete difference allowing yourself to actually accept and enjoy things makes.

Even threw in some chocolate chips. Revolutionary.

It wasn't easy getting two plates, two cups, and a jug of maple syrup into the bedroom in one trip. But I got it. Set my own and the syrup on the nightstand on my side of the bed, then slid in next to her. She stirred again, and this time the smell must have gotten to her because she rolled over slightly, blinking up at me.

"Hnnh? Morning…"

"Hey," I breathed, heart pounding in my throat and eyes misting over at how cute she looked there. "You gonna sleep all night?"

"Whuh? All night?" She sat up a little quick, then her eyes crossed slightly. "Ooh… that was… a bad idea."

"Here, this might help," I chuckled as I handed her the coffee. She wrapped her hands around it and sipped.

"Mmm… Nesquik. You remembered."

For a few seconds, I just watched her, feeling like I'd never known a person I cared about enough to literally watch them drink coffee. Then I plopped the plate into her lap. "Breakfast."

"O-ooh," she shivered, squirming a little. "Warm plate."

"Yep. You okay?"

"Well…" Now it was her turn to blush, seemingly over nothing. Which was what I thought until she whispered, "You set it on top of my morning wood."

My eyes went a lot rounder before I hissed, "Shit, sorry! I didn't even notice, I'm- you need me to-"

"I got it," she laughed at my panic, nudging the plate slightly to a more comfortable position on top of one of her thighs.

"Okay." Then I turned to sit next to her, grabbing for my own plate and the syrup, offering that to her first. She took the bottle with an overly polite little dip of her head, and I grinned. Once her pancakes were covered, she held it over mine and began to drizzle, very, verrrry slowly.

"Say 'when'!"

Still giddy and smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, I went, "Okay… okay, wait… when." Then she tipped it back up, and I took the bottle and set it aside before digging in.

About a third of the way through, she swallowed and said, "Thanks for this. I don't care, pancakes are a food for every time of day."

"Even morning wood time?" I whispered. Her hand came up to cover her face for a second, but we were both laughing. "I dunno… just woke up and felt you there, and was thinking about how much you did for me…"

"You don't have to. Like, it's not that I expect you to 'pay me back'; I did what we needed to happen. You'd do the same thing if I ever got stuck in my own head or whatever, right?"

It was tempting to jokingly say "Nah, I'd leave you to rot." And I knew Knives would have laughed. But in that moment, I didn't want to use my usual biting humour. It was becoming easier to make other choices now. So instead what I said was, "In a hot second. You're everything in the world to me."

Her fork fell to the plate as she stared at me, mouth slightly open. I had to look away, because that gaze was so intense. Then she pulled me a little closer and pressed our two sets of syrup-coated lips into each other. It was delicious and sweet in more ways than one.

"Fuck," I breathed when she let me go.

"I love you," she said easily, cheeks bunched. "Cutie."

"I am n-not cute," I protested weakly as I blushed almost as red as my hair. Not making much of a case for myself, I know.

"All lies. Princess Pine is the cutest princess."

Sighing, I finally reached for my own mug. "We're not calling me that."

"What about the dress? You promised."

"I didn't 'promise', I just didn't shoot it down. But… okay, maybe later."

"Yay!" she giggled, and I rolled my eyes as I sipped. "But if 'Princess Pine' really bothers you, I can stop."

Unlike before, I actually considered instead of demanding she never speak those words again. Finally, I set my mug down and muttered, "Just not in front of other people. Please? I have a reputation as a badass drummer chick to maintain."

"Deal. And I mean it, if I slip up you can punish me."

"Punish you how? A spanking?" That seemed to shock her more than I intended, so I cleared my throat. "Or maybe I withhold Nintendo privileges?" There; totally saved it.

"Y-yeah, that seems more appropriate," she giggled, cheeks rosy now. For a few seconds, we sawed our way through hotcakes and drank coffee. Then she swallowed and asked, "Unless y-you have a thing."

"What?"

"A spanking thing."

Again, I said, "What?" But the tone was a little more scandalised now. "No, I- what the fuck? I don't want to hit you, that's not the kind of thing I want any part of."

"Not 'hit', just like… kinky paddling? Nevermind." Now she seemed embarrassed, and I couldn't stand for that.

"Hey, maybe we could try it if you want. But no, I don't really have a specific thing that I know about. I mean, aside from liking you in general, which it already feels 'kinky' enough just dating a girl for the first time."

The little smile appeared. The one that always popped up when I called her a girl. Sometimes I missed it, and a lot of that was because the smile was usually so tiny it was almost insignificant. But I got it. Even though I didn't smile about it, I always liked when people called me Kim. Not that I have tons of love for my name, but being called "the drummer chick" or "the redhead" annoys me. So it's a very slight relief if someone doesn't do that. Probably the same for her when people got her gender right instead of calling her a dude, or whatever name she had before "Knives."

Which I asked her. I knew it was probably rude, but this was different from some random friend or stranger asking. I just decided not to hit her in the face with it. "So where did the name 'Knives' come from? Like… it's pretty unusual, so I'm surprised I didn't already ask before."

"Oh, it's really dumb," she laughed as we ate. But when I didn't say anything else, she shrugged. "Okay. Um… so my name was Qiang Chau, or Chau Qiang really. But like, I both wanted a Western name and a girl's name, so when I came out my mom let me change it on my birth certificate. And, um… I was still in junior high and trying to be edgy." By that point, she was blushing hardcore.

"Nothing edgier than 'Knives'. But I kind of figured you would go for something a little… girlier? Like, to make it more obvious to people that you are who you are now, and not still who they thought you were."

For a few seconds, I just kept eating and sipping at my coffee. When I realised the room was still silent, I looked over to see her eyes all watery. At first I thought I fucked up somehow, but then she leaned up to kiss my cheek, holding there for a long moment.

"What?"

"You're so sweet, Kim. Like… I dunno, just really hit me then. You're not messing up and saying stuff like I 'chose' being a girl or whatever. And I wouldn't mind much if you did, but like, it's so great to hear you getting it now. Makes me feel loved and stuff."

Now understanding, I set down my coffee and reached over to cup her face. "Yeah. Feel like I'm finally past the 'let's figure this out' stage. Not that much to figure out, except how I'm supposed to be a good girlfriend."

"Breakfast in bed is doing good, for sure." Then she looked back down as she started cutting up her last few bites. "And yeah, Knives is really my first name. But um… my middle name is embarrassing and dumb."

"Then don't tell me," I said easily. "I don't want you to feel embarrassed."

"Whatever. Um… it's _Mulan_."

Putting down my coffee again, I turned to raise an eyebrow at her. "Mulan? Like the Disney movie?"

"Yeah," she groaned, definitely wanting to crawl under my bed and hide. "Like, it was my fave growing up because she was Chinese, she was really strong and badass even though she was a girl, and… I dunno, she did the whole cross-dressing thing, so somehow that kinda fit to me, y'know? But I didn't want it to be my first name or I'd just get a lot of teasing. Like Japanese girls who get called 'Hello Kitty' or whatever. At least with Knives, other kids in high school tried to laugh at it but then I could pull out a knife and they'd be like 'oh'."

"Knives Mulan Chau. I dunno, I like it." I finished off my pancakes and set the plate aside, then turned to snuggle into her side as she finished. "My name's so boring. Kimberly Annabel Pine. Mom usually just called me 'Kimberly Ann' when I was being good, and only the full middle name when I was an unholy terror."

"That's sweet. Even the yelling part, unless she would yell about nothing. My mom does that sometimes." To my surprise, she offered me one of the last bites, holding it up to my lips. Feeling a little self-conscious, I opened and let her feed me, and we both grinned. It was such a randomly cutesy moment that I almost couldn't handle it.

"Y-yeah," I finally said once I swallowed. "She's a good mom. You'll have to meet her if I head back north again."

"That'd be awesome! And you can meet my parents, too; just make sure you wear hockey pads." I laughed, and she grinned before taking a sip of her coffee. "Nah, they're actually pretty cool, just nosy and set in their ways. But like I said, they both accepted me, which is way better than it could be. Families can be kind of mean about transitioning without even like, doing it on purpose."

Didn't have much to say to that. She would know better than me. I watched as she finished the food and the coffee, then set the dishes aside and slid down to snuggle a little closer to me. We kissed, and she wrapped her arms tightly around me as if she never wanted to let go.

"Thank you."

"What? For what, breakfast? No big."

"For existing," she whispered, and I felt my heart skip over a beat. "Being everything I wanted. A rock star who can treat me sweet. Like… everything."

"I'm not a rock star," I grumbled, but she just kissed me again. We tangled limbs and enjoyed each other's mouths for a few minutes. I forgot the thread of the conversation, forgot everything except how much I loved this, loved being with her.

Even when I felt something poking me again, I ignored it. But she didn't; not this time. Her lips pulled off mine and she whispered, "Guess you can tell how much I… like rolling around with you."

"And you can't, so I'll tell you: a lot." She grinned against my mouth, and we kissed. "But I'm having fun just like this."

"Me, too. Hey…" Her hand rubbed up and down my side. "Um… I think I'm gonna get a shower. Sleeping for that long makes me feel gross. After that… you wanna spend the rest of the morning before work just hanging out?"

My lips quirked upward. "You gonna jerk off in the shower?"

"No, I promise," she giggled, waggling her hips back and forth. A little gasp of desire fell from my lips. "You gonna do it while I'm in there?"

"Maybe." She pouted, so I changed it to, "No. I can resist."

Nodding, she kissed me again and began to get out of bed. Turned away so I couldn't see the tenting in her cute little floral-patterned panties. Hesitated. I was reaching up to put my hand on the small of her back, just to ask her something like if she was okay or needed something, or forgot something. It just barely brushed there before she turned around, and I found myself touching her again.

"Oh, shit," I breathed, staring at my hand. At the firm form resting there. After a couple of seconds, I drew my hand away and looked up at her. "Sorry, Knives, I wasn't-"

"I know," she said in a nervous voice. She knelt on the edge of the mattress, and I had to fight to keep from glancing back down again. Holding her eyes. "Do you like it? For real."

"What?"

"My dick. I mean…" She hesitated for a second. "My plan was always to have bottom surgery after college. Y'know, because of recovery time. Some people have more trouble with it than others, and I don't wanna flunk out of classes. But like… if you like me how I am, and I _do_ get surgery… that affects you, right?"

That was a pretty big question. And I didn't want to answer right away, afraid of fucking up my words or hurting her feelings on accident, but she _needed_ an answer. So I let Princess Pine take over. I kissed her hip, far away from the actual bulge but close enough to show I wasn't remotely afraid.

"I want you… to be happy. Yeah, you're hot like this, but you would be hot like that, too. So just… do what you feel is right for Knives. I'm not going anywhere."

Tears were in her eyes. She couldn't seem to respond, and was still holding herself still and watching me, so I kissed a little closer to the middle. A fraction of an inch at a time; giving her _plenty_ of time to pull the ripcord. When she never said anything, only smiled blearily down at me while I kissed, I pressed my lips against her semi-firmness.

"O-ohh…" I didn't do it again, so a moment later she opened her eyes to look at me again, licking her lips. "Kim… how can you be real? You just… you didn't even flinch."

"Not everybody is Young Neil, Knives."

"That wasn't exactly what I was thinking about… and it wasn't _just_ him. But yeah, you're amazing. I can't believe…" When I knelt up, putting our faces level, she smiled a little wider. "Hi."

My lips ghosted over hers before I whispered, "Love you," then kissed her harder for a moment. Satisfied that she believed it now, I pulled back and swatted her butt. "Now go shower, you stinky ninja."

" _AH!_ Kim!"

"Testing out that spanking thing a little." Giggling, Knives backed off the bed, holding her backside as she skipped away. I saw her little CN Tower was still partially erect, but for once she wasn't trying to hide it away, wasn't turning or crossing her legs. Just grinning at me while she floated out of the room to bathe and I moved to take care of our dishes.

Nope, I really didn't have any problem at all. And I don't just mean with that one issue; I mean _at all._ There are days when you look around and just realise how precious life is, and this was one of those. And I expected to have plenty more where that came from, thanks to the cute stalker who changed my life from the inside out. Healed my heart. Made me happy when I never thought I would be happy again.

Happily fucking ever after. In both senses.

 _The End (kinda? But not quite!)_


	23. Bonus Sexy Phase

**WARNINGS** : Hardons, grinding, touching, cunnilingus, nipple-play, foot worship, handjob, splooging, ejaculate-eating, analingus.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Merry Christmas Eve! Welcome to the Bonus Level! It's gonna be really damn long, too, but I wanted the smut to be all in one spot. This way, if more uhhh _vivid encounters_ are not your thing, feel free to skip this chapter entirely; it's just a fun little romp to enjoy after the long, hard road Kim and Knives have been down. No real plot, since that was all wrapped up in the chapter before. It's NSFW, to state the obvious. And I apologise for that double entendre at the very end lol.

[QUICK EDIT: The cover art was provided by Arendorable on Tumblr. I wish there was a way to go back and edit previous chapters without the "edit doc" disappearing to put the credit at the very beginning, but oh well - it goes here instead!]

Hope you've all enjoyed this fic and the crazy twists and turns it took along the way! Have to admit, I'm a little sad to see this one end, but all good things must, eventually. I'm going to find time to post the final level of "Bind Us" tomorrow, and then after that I can focus more fully on "Coven Of Oz". So I'm not going to be done writing! I will, however, miss the _Pilgrimverse_ , but I've already gone on about that enough for a lifetime.

Happy Holidays!

 _Jessex_

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Bonus Sexy Phase  
[Status: Not A Phase At All]

Actually, the "happily fucking ever after" started a lot sooner after that than I expected. I finished the dishes, then got some clothes together for my own shower. Tidied up a little, since my place tended to turn into a dump pretty easily. When I finally heard the bathroom click open, I went to meet my Knives, smiling at how cute she looked with damp hair and a towel around her toned body.

"Happy birthday to _me_."

"Dork," she giggled, glancing at the clothes under my arm. "Your turn?"

"Yep. If you find something of mine to wear that fits okay, have at it."

"Cool. I didn't think about that; I should probably keep some stuff at your apartment from now until classes start back up."

"Could be a smart idea." Leaning in to kiss her cheek, I whispered, "I'll be quick, I promise. Wanna watch a movie or whatever before you have to head to work?"

"Or whatever," she said with a grin as I went into the bathroom. That did strike me as a tiny bit odd… but I shook it off and just got on with my shower.

Those same feel-good sunshiney thoughts followed me through my morning routine. NegaKim's sensibilities were offended, but I was learning to balance those with the happier state of being I was in now. Weird. Breakfast in bed with the hottest girl I'd ever- well okay, the _only_ hot girl I'd ever been remotely interested in, was apparently all I needed to turn my frown upside-down. At one point, I even caught myself humming some lame pop song Knives had played for me at one point.

Maybe Princess Pine really _did_ take over.

When I exited the bathroom in sporty shorts and a faded old Plumtree tee, rubbing at my face, I looked in the living room for Knives. Nope. A glance told me she wasn't in the kitchen, so I headed for the bedroom.

"Hey, Kni… well."

That was all I could bring myself to say. Lying on my bed was a very nude Knives Chau, leaning up on her elbows and biting her lip as her cheeks glowed, red fringe hanging down over one of her eyes. My first thought was that she was adorable. The second was that I couldn't see a certain piece of anatomy that we had been discussing not too long ago. Didn't take much thinking to realise it was tucked away for aesthetic purposes. A quick glance up at her face again showed she was watching me, so I cast my eyes down, seeing her crimson toes scrunching up nervously.

"H-hey," she whispered. "I, um… f-found something of yours to wear."

"What?" I took another look and finally spotted it: a silver necklace that I forgot I even owned. That was it. "Ah. Well, uh… nice. It's very nice."

"Is it okay? It's not like, a priceless family heirloom or something, is it? I could-"

"No, no," I laughed. Actually, it kind of was; it belonged to my mom, and her mom before her. But it wasn't 'priceless', just a fairly common silver chain. Not one I cared about a lot, but would have been sad if I lost it. "Looks good on you. Um…"

Again, she flexed the muscles in her calves, in her stomach. Trying to keep still, I think. "Um?" But instead of answering right away, I came over to sit on the bed. Clearly, she was seconds away from freaking out. My hand drifted over… and I stuck my finger into her navel.

"Beep."

"Hey!" she giggled, smiling in both amusement and relief. I withdrew my hand, just smiling down at her. "So… hi."

"Bonjour," I replied in a deadpan, and we both grinned. "Now, I know this sends a pretty hard-to-misinterpret signal, but… what's going on here?"

"What do you mean? I'm, like… _presenting_ myself to you. I'm a present!"

Nodding, I leaned down lower and kissed the slightly-damp temple, and heard her sigh. Then I drew back a couple inches. "Got that part. Just… well, I know you've been kind of… taking it slow in that area. So I don't want to assume that because you're in your birthday suit, that means I'm about to bang you senseless or whatever."

Those three words, "bang you senseless," did make her gasp and look a little shyer than she already did. But she recovered pretty fast, biting her lip before she responded, "I'm not really sure, either. Just… I guess I partly wanted to see what you would do if you got outta the shower and found me like this."

"Like a test?"

"Well… more like satisfying my curiosity? Not really supposed to be a test like _that_. Sorry if it feels that way! But like… it's not _just_ a test."

Though I was nodding, that didn't mean I was completely sure what she meant. But I wasn't trying to accuse her of treating me badly by testing me. In her maybe-partly-asexual shoes, I'd probably be doing that to any and all prospective partners. So I just pet up and down her bare hip. "Does that mean I pass?"

"Y-yeah." She swallowed hard, then smiled up at me. "I'm… pretty satisfied so far."

"Want to be more satisfied?" I waggled my eyebrows to show her I was joking… but I guess she was too nervous about the whole situation. Her eyes wandered down to my hand, then back up to mine. "Knives?"

"Yes?"

"Uh… it's okay. We can find you something to wear."

"Not yet. Kiss me."

So I kissed her. I mean, when your girlfriend asks, you just do it. Unless you're in the middle of something huge, like negotiating a hostage situation. It was a good kiss, full of warmth and caring and the tiniest drop of heat. She rolled toward me a little, and I did the same, pulling myself more fully onto the bed as we began to embrace, to tangle our bodies and tongues. Man, was it nice. Every time was.

It didn't take that long for her to begin to squirm a little. At first, I kind of ignored it, but then I pulled back with a quiet snort of amusement. "Fine, go get your clothes. However you're comfortable."

"Not that, Kim," she whispered nervously. She glanced downward, then back up. "It's, um… if we keep going, I won't be able to keep it tucked back. That's all."

"What? Oh." My eyes tried to turn toward her thighs again but I kept myself from looking. "Morning wood strikes again?"

"Not morning wood this time. It's my…" Finally, a little of her usual light returned to her eyes as she grinned and whispered, "My Kim _Pine."_

"Get out."

"Awww," she giggled, forcing me to crack and smile as I rolled my eyes. "I thought that was a good one."

"Really isn't." As I pet up and down her hip, I whispered, "I don't care if I see it, you know. But if you do, we can trade? You can have these shorts, I have undies on."

Knives thought about it for a minute. _Really_ thought. Then she whispered, "I'm okay with you seeing. I mean, after our conversation… I know you don't mind my body. Just hard for me to _believe_ it sometimes. Does that make sense? It's not that I think you'd lie about this, just that I'm super nervous."

' _And hurt from the last time you were in this kind of situation,'_ I thought to myself. But didn't bring it up. Young Neil was the past, and the two of them had settled things. Now was our time. Instead, I spent my energy kissing her lips again. "Would it help if I strip down, too?"

"Umm…" Her smile was vaguely coy. "Help me feel comfortable 'cause I'm not the only one who's naked, yeah. Otherwise, it's definitely not going to make Little Knives any more calm."

That was all I needed to hear. Now, let's get this straight: I don't generally _like_ people seeing me in the buff. Even being in a swimsuit kinda makes me antsy, but it's the attire that suits the occasion, so I can roll with that. But I'm just barely less awkward about that than Knives is, and she has a legitimate societal reason to be afraid of people seeing her without her bits covered. With me, it's just the usual cocktail of beauty standards and low self-esteem. Still…

"Oooh," she cooed and clapped as I whipped my tee up and over my head, casually dropping it to the floor. My flush said it all, and she giggled. "Sorry, I can quit."

"Do you want to take these off? Make it an audience participation strip show?"

Biting her lip, she did hook one index finger over my waistband. That made me gulp; I was even less used to _being stripped._ But she pulled it away and pushed both fists against her chin. Too fucking cute. "Ohmygosh _no_ , I couldn't."

"You sure?" A little nervous nod. So I stood back off the bed and pushed them down, shorts and undies in one go. The cool air made me shiver, but I forced myself not to think about that. Then I crawled back onto the bed to lie down next to her.

"Look how hot we are," she observed as she gestured down along our bodies. Not that I agreed, because I was lying next to perfection, but it was a nice thought. "Total lesbian fantasy."

Scoffing, I glanced down. "Pretty sure most lesbian fantasies don't include my overgrowth of firecrotch, or all these stupid freckles."

"Or a dick," she added. But it was a lighter tone than when either of us brought it up before.

"Hey, mine does."

Her nose bumped up against mine as she met my gaze. "You're weird, though. Weird enough to not mind someone even weirder." Then she really threw me for a loop by reaching down to brush her hand over my mons. "And I don't mind this. Like, that's how it grows, right?"

"O-ohhh," I let out shakily, having to swallow because my voice had cracked slightly. She drew back to blink at me, and I smiled. "Mm, yeah. I know. But if I have a date, I like to maintain a landing strip or something like that. Not just let the bush grow untamed. I wasn't expecting today to be when… anybody would be looking."

"I don't have to look!" she promised me with a nervous smile, removing her hand completely now. "Promise!"

"Well, it's fine. Um… are you sure you don't care about furriness levels?"

"Completely sure. I know the hair is clean. And even if it wasn't… well, I'd rather touch you when you're dirty than anybody else when they're clean."

That sent a throb downstairs that I had a pretty difficult time ignoring. So I kissed her again before I tried to talk. "God, you're pushing all the right buttons. Almost don't believe you've never done this before."

"Total noob," she assured me as she kissed back. We rolled slightly until I was on top of her, then again so that she was on top of me. After the first few seconds, everything else melted away, and I was just with Knives. My Knives, kissing and holding her close, basking in this moment.

Then I rolled to be on top again, and her legs shifted just differently enough from how they had been moved before. A thick _something_ sprang up to be caught between my thighs, and I gasped; it was warm, and real, and definitely not my imagination. Knives let out a mewling noise below me, and I blinked down at her as her eyes fluttered open, waiting for what my reaction would be.

"That's you," I breathed with a smile, flexing my thigh muscles and squeezing her. She sucked in another breath then bit her lip, eyes slowly closing as she weathered the pleasure. "Wow…"

She started to say "I've never…" but then seemed to realise I would know that already, because she fell silent, peering up at me with uncertainty. Then I started to roll off. "Kim?"

"Well, I don't think you meant to come so close to putting it in, so I figured I would move." Settling in next to her, I petted up and down her stomach. On the way down, I bumped against it, and ducked my head. "Shit, sorry!"

After letting out a shaky sigh, she smiled over at me. "It's fine. I'm just… I dunno…" Licking her lips, she kissed mine quickly to give herself a moment to think. "This is dumb, but part of me was still worried you'd run away once you really saw it. Or felt it."

"I still haven't seen it yet. Well, through your panties, I guess."

"Do you want to? Look, I mean. I'm nervous, but if you wanted to…"

"Not if you're nervous."

Shaking her head, she kissed my cheek before whispering, "Not that kind of nervous. My words are getting all mixed up. Like… I'm excited, but also kinda scared you won't like it. And that's just because I'm scared about _anyone_ looking, like, definitely not you specifically! Mostly excited, anyway. Does that make any sense?"

My face was stock still, eyes narrowed very slightly. "You're sure? _Completely_ sure? I mean… I do want to, though. But only if you're-"

"Yes, silly," she giggled. But when my hand moved a little lower, she froze, so I stopped. Her sigh was obviously frustrated. "Okay, I know I keep reacting like that, but I really am okay. Just… can't help my squirminess."

"If I go too far, will you say 'stop'? Swear?" She gave a little nod, and smiled while biting her bottom lip. "Alright." Then I had an idea. Knives loved to talk. She could talk all fucking day. So as my hand drifted down again, I said, "I have a question."

"Go on?" she asked in a slightly higher pitch than usual.

"Um… so I'm not really sure how to talk about your dick. Meaning, I wanted to say before when I felt it pop up that it was 'so huge', but I didn't know… if you'd like me saying that, or if it would give you dysphoria. I guess."

Around the time my hand got to her hip, just to the side of where I knew I would find more, she answered, "Um… I dunno. But hey, look at you, learning the lingo!"

"Trying to," I snorted, wrapping my hand around the soft, warm skin. Her breath caught, then blasted outward in a gust. "Mmm… you like that?"

"Yeah…"

My lips pushed into her cheek. "So… if you want, I could say it's a pretty dick. Or maybe that it's a big clit? Since biologically speaking, it is."

"R-really?" she said in a tone that would have been conversational if she weren't shaking, eyes half-closed and bottom lip trembling.

"Yeah. I was reading about that last week, how like…" My fingers trailed down to press into the smooth sack. That was an interesting sensation, and she seemed even more surprised I was touching that than the thing above it if her squirming was any indication. "This is where it all starts, and we all have vaginas. And then some babies grow what you have, and some keep it the way mine is and work on the fine details. Or something like that."

A breathy little laugh as her thighs began to part. Very slowly, I began to kiss down her collarbone, along her chest. "Mmm… I think I… did hear something like that once… oh!" She blinked down at me when my tongue flicked over her nipple again. "Ohhh, wow, that's new!"

My lips drifted further down, over her stomach. "It's funny…" Nuzzled her belly button, and she twitched. Both all over her body and the hardness under my wrist. "This is easier for me now. Like… God, I don't think I could have done this before you were inside me."

"Did you _have_ to phrase it that way?!" she laughed, and I laughed with her. We shared a smile for a moment, and then she looked away. "You're so close to me…"

"Mmhmm. But yeah, I mean, I wasn't… if I wanted to make anyone feel this good, it would have been you, but I still… it was too hard." She snorted, and I rolled my eyes. "Not like that, perv. I meant I couldn't just… um…" The words were being stubborn for me this time.

"You felt like I'd look at you, and you'd blush so hard you'd turn into a tomato?"

"Pretty much. That I might do this or that thing wrong and you'd feel annoyed instead of pleased. Or just that I'd look stupid for a half-second, which NegaKim would never allow. So even if we did this before you used the Micron, I would have been such an awkward idiot that it would have been pointless."

"Well, you're doing great," she breathed with a private smile only for the two of us. "My body feels like you love it right now." Another kiss, slightly closer to her center. "O-oh…"

Something about how she clenched her eyes shut made me reconsider. Not the whole thing, but going for the brass ring so soon. Should I climb back up to her other boob? Maybe just make out with her for a while until she feels relaxed again? But that would still leave her a little too well-placed to thrust just wrong and start our "first time" before we were ready for it.

Then I had another idea. A way that I could really up my game; one that I had disregarded once before as too crazy and weird, but would definitely prove that I was serious. When my lips disappeared completely, she let out a quiet "Hmm?" By the time she opened an eye, I was already kissing her big toe.

" _Oh!_ What are you doing down there?"

"Showing your body that I love it." Another kiss, and she shivered. "What?"

"W-well…" Now I was curious about this. For some reason, it seemed to be really leaving her speechless. When my lips wrapped around two of the little digits, she squeaked, "Kim! What are y… why? That's so dirty…"

"Not right out of the shower," I reminded her as I flicked my tongue over the soft little toe-pads. Actually, it wasn't as horrible as I'd expected, even if it wasn't as much fun as her nipple. "I think you like it." But me accusing her of that made her flush and hide her face behind her hands, so I started kissing my way up her ankle as I said, "Or at least, you're surprised, but I don't know why when I was already kissing everywhere else."

"Because… I mean, you said feet weren't cute, right? And it's one thing to say my face is worth kissing, or my butt is. The D gives me mixed feelings. But this is…"

"Right." Said "D" was easy for me to see now. Kissing my way up her leg gave me such a fantastic view! Like the monolith in _2001: A Space Odyssey_ , rising up above me. Seeing it only made my thirst more real, but I was determined to pace myself. "But it's okay for you to say _my_ toes are cute, and to _make_ me say yours are. And like you pointed out last time, we both just washed, so nothing's really 'dirty' right now. Including…"

And I had arrived. Her erection was an inch from my face, and I was smirking up at her, waiting to see what she would do. Giving her all the time in the world.

"Ooh…" Her thighs twitched together a little around me, but then pushed themselves wider. "Okay… so… what do you think?"

What a question. I wanted to tell her it was the hottest dick I'd ever seen and that I wanted it in me, but somehow I didn't think she wanted to hear that. Like it would make her feel 'manly' or whatever, which was not the goal. Her cock wasn't the biggest, but wasn't the smallest, either, and it was pretty thick and smooth-looking. My mouth was already watering to taste her, which was weird because I didn't normally care about going down on guys.

But she wasn't a guy. Probably a big factor in why this was different. And if I'm really being honest with myself… I wanted to go down on her before I learned she had a dick. This just made it easier, since I already had some practice with fellatio and wouldn't have to spend some period of adjustment learning cunnilingus. Something about Knives just made me want to devour all of her.

Maybe it was because she's so _sweet._ The world's best dessert.

"I like it," I told her simply. Getting that out of the way. My hands pushed her thighs all the way open, and she obliged before I leaned down on my hands. Inspecting. "The size is just about right. Really soft, and kissable." When I did kiss the underside, she squeaked, so I didn't do it again right away. "This line that goes down the bottom of it… over your balls…"

As my fingernail traced the dark little seam, she sucked a breath in through her teeth. When I went lower, she let out a shaky, "OH! God, Kim, I…"

"Too far?" When she didn't reply right away, I brought my finger away from her butt to caress the side of her sack again. "Sorry. Just getting a really good look at my girlfriend."

"You're sure it's not ugly? I mean… any of that?" My cheek was rubbing against it when she added, "Oh gosh…"

"It's you. How could it be ugly?"

With a shaky laugh, she whispered, "Think I could handle it better when you were nibbling my toes…" When I gave it another kiss, she was able to just sigh instead of spazzing this time. "Mmm… see, I told you."

"Told me what?"

"That you were nice. I couldn't feel more loved and adored than this."

"Psh," I scoffed, reaching down to very gently squeeze her balls. I repeat: _very_ gently. "I'm a cold bitch." But the little gasp got me to let go right away. "Sorry. That didn't hurt, did it?"

Her smile told me it didn't. But she still wrapped her legs around the back of my neck. "Nice. And nah, not really."

"Good." Then I took one into my mouth. I knew from a few fondles in my past that this was nothing, and totally doable for both of us. Again, she gasped, but seemed to relax into the sensation a little more. But I didn't play with it that way for very long; the point was to get acquainted with her, not start getting her off.

A little part of me felt guilty, though. She shot me down so many times that I started to really believe we might never have sex. And it was almost as if she could tell I was disappointed by that, and wanted to offer more of herself to keep me around… which she didn't have to do. At all. Then again, it could just be that she was comfortable enough with me now that the old reasons stopped mattering. Her whole sticking point was that she didn't feel enough like a woman with someone staring at her dick, or messing with it, which makes total sense. Not that it's true, just that I understand why she might feel like that. Now she could tell that I was in lesbians with her, _not_ trying to use her and turn her into a "boyfriend", so that probably helped a lot with easing her anxiety.

So once I let the ball pop out, I gave the inside of her thigh a little kiss and crawled up to lay next to her. Very turned on, but doing nothing else but laying next to my girlfriend and petting her stomach.

"Oh?" she asked, rolling her head just enough to look into my eyes. "Done already? That was fast."

"What's to say? It's a dick. Kinda knew what it would look like more or less. But it's a nice one, and I love the hottie it's attached to. So… yeah, I'm good for now."

Her little smile told me everything. So many things at once. Her hips rolled as she kissed me, so I could feel it against my leg. Thrusting just a little. But I could tell this wasn't going to be like the last time, when she kept going at it so hard she splooged into her undies; just a little grinding for some vague pleasure.

"You could fuck me right now," I pointed out, tone more playful than serious. Her eyebrows went up, and I pecked her cheek. "Logistically."

"Y-yeah," she admitted, biting her lip as she glanced down between us. Then she leaned up to kiss my chin. "Mm… I'm having a great time."

"Same."

"And thank you. For um… being okay with me taking it slow. I could tell you really wanted to go down on me."

My laugh was clearly shy. "That obvious? I mean… it could be fun. But only if we were _both_ having fun."

"Yeah. You get it. And… I know I will when we do it. Like, no question!"

"Mmm." Another brief kiss. Then I pulled back, a sudden thought coming to me. "Your turn."

"Hm?"

"To look. I mean, that only seems fair."

"Oh…" A little chuckle floated out as she looked away. "Well… if I did, my reasons would be a little different. Not totally different; I still want to see you. See how beautiful you are."

"You mean how hairy?" But I could follow her logic. "You mean… seeing a vagina up close and personal for the first time."

Nodding, she raised a hand to begin petting up and down my shoulder and upper arm. "Never have before. Unlike most girls who got to do the mirror thing."

"Yeah, I did," I admitted with a slight smirk, and she grinned. "Just looked fucking weird to me. But then again, I never much cared about dicks or vaginas. Kinda thought dicks were funny until I saw the most beautiful one in the world a couple minutes ago." Her grin turned bashful, and I had to kiss it again. But immediately afterward, I turned and laid back. "Alright, now is the time."

"Really?" When I nodded, she looked shy and indecisive for a moment. Then she kissed my neck, my collarbone… she was going to do what I did for her. Which I was not ready for.

But it was happening. Her lips moved to my nipple, and she decided to spend a lot longer on it than I had. My hands came up to thread through her hair as she paid it patient attention, and I let my leg drift outward, then raised an ankle to caress the back of her thigh. Maybe she was a quick study, or maybe she practiced on her own time, but either way I had zero complaints. This was _incredible._

"They're so perky," she whispered as she moved to the other one and pressed into it with her teeth, just barely — but more than enough to make me moan in a higher pitch than I had been. God, those noises coming out of me were so embarrassing! "Mmm…"

"Fuck," I whispered. That was all I could get out until she started kissing lower. "Oh… oh, Knives…"

Once her lips hit hair, she drew back away and waited, staring up at my face instead of down. Silent permission was given when my thighs fell open, and she could inspect the female anatomy for the first time with an actual live specimen. It was really uncomfortable for me, but it wasn't because it was Knives. Just because I knew she was looking at me as an example of what a cis woman was, and studying it so closely. Probably _memorising_ every detail. But I could put up with it if it meant something so important to my girlfriend.

"You're wet," she observed, still not touching. I nodded. "Did I do that?"

"Y-yeah." My hands drifted down to my hips, hesitated for a second, then moved to either side and began to gently pull myself open. "Does this help?"

Her eyes went round, and she actually pushed her fingertips into her mouth for a moment as she took in the change in what she was seeing. I had to look away after a second; too much, too weird, I was ugly down there, she had to be thinking that, or that it was too pink, or not pink enough, or-

Eventually, I felt a soft press of lips - not against my cunt, but the knuckle of my index finger instead. "You're so cute down here, Kim. Like a perfect flower."

"Ugh," was all I could respond, and I heard her chuckle — _felt_ the rush of air, and had to suck in a breath from feeling it. "S-so, what do you think of seeing your first pussy? Besides it being 'cute' or whatever."

"Well, this isn't my first. I saw Tamara's when we were little. _Way_ different experience, though." I laughed, and she grinned up at me. "Can I touch? Like, I kinda wanted to, but figured I'd just do some looking first."

My voice was trying for casual when I said "Knock yourself out," but I was shaking too much for that. Nobody had ever done this before. The couple of guys who tried just kinda looked at it and were like "hawt" and started licking it like a postage stamp. Totally failing to bring me more than distant pleasure. Knives was not just staring at me — she was _appreciating._ And now she was going to do it in an interactive way.

God help me. What was my life turning into? I went from still being vaguely bitter about Scott, to letting another of his exes, a Chinese ninja girl who was barely not a high schooler anymore, go down on me. On paper, it just sounded like a string of bad decisions. But in reality, it was saving me from a miserable life of being alone.

And she got off to a great start. Or was getting _me_ off to a great start, I should say. About as rough as most of the other times I'd had this happen, but she was patient, and doing her best. After a minute, she popped her head up to ask, "Am I doing okay?"

"Yeah. God, Knives…"

"Give me tips, though. I'm, um… do you want me more here?" Kissed my lips. "Or up here?" Kissed my hood.

"Dude, wherever you want. But um…" I spent a minute trying to think. What _should_ I tell her? "You can move your tongue around more. Like, when you're going up or down, hit more areas on the labia. That kinda thing." She tried it, and I moaned. "Nnhh…"

"Better?" Then she did something on her own, probably slightly inspired by my suggestion: swirled her tongue around my clit, pushing the tip up under the hood slightly.

"FUCK!"

"Oh!" she gasped, looking up at me again. "S-so that one did something!"

Rubbing my hand over my face to get rid of the sweat, I laughed breathlessly. "Yeah! Yeah, it did something!" We shared a grin, and she kissed my petals again. "Mhh, oh shit… Knives…"

And she kept going. I mean, _damn_ did she keep going. The great thing about Knives being totally comfortable as long as she wasn't the one being pleasured, and me now being semi-comfortable with everything thanks to Princess Pine busting out of her cage, is that she could do whatever she wanted to my body and my general reaction was "Yes, thanks". Her tongue started to hit the areas I liked more often as she kept at it, and I had no more feedback to give other than loving every second.

It didn't take more than a few minutes before I felt my orgasm starting to rise. Still longer than when I jilled off next to her, but pretty quick thanks to how long I had been secretly hoping this would happen. Then she had to take a break to catch her breath, which wasn't surprising.

"Oh wow," she whispered.

"Yeah… wow." Clearing my throat, I reached down between my legs to caress through her hair. "You're so… Knives, I love you…"

"I love you, too," she panted with a smile as she licked her lips.

"Do I taste okay? I mean, that's a fucking weird question, but…"

"Fine, yeah. I mean, I don't know what this is supposed to taste like, but it's kinda… a little salty? Not like much of anything. But you smell really… I dunno, but it's strong and it makes me hot…"

"Yeah?" For my benefit, she rolled to her side slightly so I could see the proof. "Shit, yeah I guess it does!"

Dipping down to kiss me, she then raised her hand and started petting me with her fingers for a moment, giving her lips and tongue a rest. "Is this good?"

"Mmhmm…" My eyes were now switching between the hand petting me, Knives's eager face, and the erection that I wished I could somehow play with while she was working on me. Not even kidding, my hands flexed on the sheets, trying to summon it to them so they could touch. Me licking my lips probably just looked like I was trying to wet them, but it was from a burning desire to kiss, to taste.

Around the time her tongue fell to my clit again, I raised my leg to caress her body. Just wanting to do _anything_ to show her how much I appreciated spending time with her, especially like this! What ended up happening was…

"Ooh," she sighed with a shiver, and gust of air onto my damp folds nearly made me lose it then and there. "That feels weird."

"Sorry!" I panted, lowering my foot. It was still on her knee, somewhat closeby, but no longer in contact with her warm length. "Didn't mean to… kick your dick."

"Well, it didn't hurt, I mean… it felt like you were touching me with your hand, but both of those are up there," she giggled. "So it weirded me out. Wasn't anything bad."

Still feeling a little embarrassed, I tried to relax into her mouth when it fell back to my clit. The level of skill was unreal for a newbie, but by this point I was just grateful that she knew what she was doing and had no desire to question it. And…

Well, yeah. That's the story of how she got me to my first orgasm as a couple, not counting just flicking the bean next to her that other time. I was already almost there, and it didn't take much more than her tongue on my button and her fingers sliding around my wet lips before I was screaming, arching my back, and generally doing all those orgasm-related things we do. And it blew my fucking mind.

Once she was sure that I was done, she pulled back and kissed the middle of my furry patch. "Good? Was it good? Seriously, I need to know…"

All I could do was nod. Taking that as good enough feedback, she grinned and climbed up to curl around me. Of course, it was impossible for me not to notice the arousal pressing into my hip, but for a moment I let it be there. The way she was teaching me. Had to catch my breath a little.

Then I turned to look into her gleeful eyes. Almost didn't want to say anything, she looked so cute and sweet there. When I let out a little chuckle, she grinned and whispered, "What?"

"Puppy dog tail." The slight crease in her brow made me elaborate, reaching over to briefly touch her dick with one finger. "This. It's like when a dog gets really excited and happy, and they wag their tail? That's what this is for you. Don't know why it took me this long to put those together."

"Oh… hey, yeah, I guess that's true." Shrugging one shoulder, she looked faintly pleased with the comparison somehow. Then I began to stroke it with that same single finger, and her eyes closed as she sighed.

"How about this? Just thinking out loud. This time, I'll give you a handjob. Not going to try to turn it into anything else, I promise. If you don't like it, we can go back to ignoring it for a while. If you do like it, maybe we'll try other stuff another day. But for tonight, just my hand, just the way we are right now."

Her smile did disappear, which gave me a pang of regret. I knew I was pushing again. But I was hoping that if I showed her I was comfortable with it, and didn't think it meant she was a dude, that she might get more comfortable with me doing stuff for her. And all I was doing was asking; if she told me to drop it, I'd drop it.

"You really like my dick, huh?" she asked in a soft voice. Couldn't really read her emotions when she said it, but I nodded, to make sure she knew I didn't _dislike_ it. "Okay. Like I said, I feel weird about it, which is a whole other set of issues, but like… I love playing with your pussy, and I only tried it once. So I guess I get that it's the same for you with me."

"Maybe… don't even think of it as a dick."

"Then what? An _egg roll?"_ My long, mortified groan only made her giggle a little. "Sorry. But it was kinda funny when I thought about it later. Lame, but kinda funny."

Delivering a long lick along her throat gave me time to recover from having to think about that shitty comment drunk-Kim made. It also gave me the added bonus of hearing her whimper. "How about… think of it as me flicking your bean? Okay, maybe that doesn't work that way, I dunno."

"No, I kinda see where you're going with that. I just don't have that kind of imagination that can completely pretend I wasn't born with boy-parts. But um… I guess a handjob isn't that different from me jerking myself off, which I've done plenty of times."

"Really? _Plenty_ , huh?"

Biting her lip for a second, she then whispered, "Yeah. Usually just in the mornings when I wake up hard and can't get back to sleep."

"God, there's a show I'd love to watch." My hand slid between our bodies, wrapping gently around her. "You start like this?"

"Mm… yeah…"

"And then you're picturing what you were dreaming about?"

As I started stroking, she arched her back, lips parting slightly. "Ooh, yes. Or… s-sometimes nothing… before you, it was… mostly boys, but now I think of you…"

Well, that was unexpectedly flattering. Seriously, I felt butterflies in my stomach when I pictured this quasi-asexual girl thinking about me on the rare occasion she touched herself. Especially since there were tons of better, more attractive images to pull up in the moment, in my opinion.

"Tell me what you think of me doing," I purred as I began to kiss the side of her throat again.

"Nothing, usually. Just like… nnhh… how pretty you are, and… how much I like you… or sometimes…"

When she didn't say anything more after a few more seconds, I kissed again and whispered, "Sometimes?"

"W-well… I think about our first kiss… and h-how you did this for me…" A hard swallow, and she sought out my eyes. "It really confused me, especially since I thought I was straight before that, but it was so…"

"So?"

"You made me come harder than I ever had before, Kim," she confessed with bare, vulnerable honesty. "It was like… an awakening, y'know? Another person can make me feel like that… I wasn't even sure anyone _could_ since it had never happened. And it was a girl…"

My hand stopped for a moment, and I kissed her chin. "You're a woman. Sorry if that made you have a… crisis of faith, or whatever. But having a college girl make-out session doesn't even really make you bi. Just curious."

"Does this make me bi?" she asked, thrusting into my hand very slightly. My smile returned, and so did hers after a second.

"This does, yeah."

"And I wasn't in college yet when that happened." Another groan of annoyance at my past self made her giggle. "That's probably awkward for you to remember."

"Definitely." I gave her dick a little squeeze with my nails, and she let out a gasp and squirmed. "Jerk."

But she was still distracted by it. Licking her lips, she kissed my forehead before she told me softly, "I liked it. Wh-when you did that… the first time?"

"Did what? Jerked you off, or squeezed you?"

"Yeah. Well, both, but I meant when you squeezed me. It really made me feel this, like… I dunno… _naughty_ feeling or something. Like I had been bad, and you were punishing me…"

"You want to be my naughty little girl?" I asked in a throaty voice, squeezing again. When she responded with a moan, I hissed, "Holy shit, you do."

"N-no, I…"

The slight distress and shame in those two words was already too much. "It's okay, Knives," I promised her immediately, stroking in a more normal fashion this time. "That's… yeah, that sounds like a whole other dimension of kinky. And we've had enough of different dimensions for a day or two. Besides…" Another kiss against her throat, tender and sweet. "I'd rather reward you for being so perfect than punish you."

"Not perfect," she managed to breathe. Her legs were falling open, she was on her back and completely mine to control. I'd never seen her this exposed before… and I hated the idea of anyone else seeing it. My precious little Knives was no one's plaything. Not even mine. And I'd be damned if I let anyone have her believe she wasn't the most beautiful woman in the universe.

" _Perfect._ All over."

Knives took my lips then, hungry and desperate, and I slid my tongue in until it immediately felt its mate and our mouths opened for them to dance together. Her hips started coming up to meet my hand and I went at it as hard as I could. Not that I even got myself off very often, so jerking a dick was using muscle groups I didn't normally exercise, but that drummer strength really came in _handy_ sometimes.

"Ah!" she breathed a minute or two later. "Kim… I'm gonna… but it's gonna go everywhere!"

Tangling our legs as my arm pumped her throbbing flesh, I whispered, "Let it go everywhere. I want to hear you finish again." But she still seemed conflicted. So I added, "I love you so much."

Worked like a charm. Just like the first drunken night, I had Knives writhing and calling out, except this time she didn't bother to keep her voice down quite so much. We were _together,_ and didn't have to worry about what Scott or anyone else in Julie's aunt's house would think. So she screamed my name as she sprayed upward, landing all over our abdomens and running down my knuckles. It was actually kind of spectacular.

It took her a little longer to recover from hers than it did for mine. All the while, I just kissed her hot cheeks and her lips, petted over her hair. Basically soothed her as best as I was capable, given that I was a cold, unfeeling bitch.

Or maybe I wasn't. Kinda figuring that out.

"S-sorry," she finally managed shakily as I pulled my hand off her half-softened cock. It was very sticky now. "Didn't mean… to do that…"

"It's cool," I chuckled very quietly, kissing her nose. That did get her to smile. "You know I've dealt with this before, right? Nothing new."

"But you shouldn't have to with me. One of the little perks of being a lesbian, usually."

"Bisexual. Both of us are. I think, anyway."

One of her shoulders shrugged, and she held up my hand to look at the mess she'd made. "Yeah. So… I guess neither of us should mind this if we're bi. But if you ever decide you do, just please tell m-"

"I said I wouldn't mind going down on you, Knives. And if I don't care about getting it in my mouth, I sure as fuck don't about getting it on my hand. Or stomach."

"Oh, here-" Shuffling down, she started licking the residue off my abdomen before I could stop her.

"Ugh! That's _yours_ , you don't have to do that!"

"Hey, I don't mind. I, um…" Now she looked really embarrassed, and I didn't know why. Until she admitted, "I've tried it before. Like, when things started getting serious with Neil, and I was trying to decide if… I could handle…"

Nodding, I flexed my fingers, looking at the gooey translucent mess. "Ahhh. Yeah, I guess… I can understand that. Practice makes perfect. Or tolerant, or whatever." Then I shoved them in my mouth. A strangled noise of surprise came from down below, but I pretended to ignore it as I closed my eyes, savouring her taste.

"Kim," she breathed as I moaned. Once I was finally done, she was still merely sitting there, waiting for the verdict.

"Not bad. Definitely better than the other times I've tried it." Hoping it would hit the right note, and not just sound dumb, I combed through her hair with my clean hand. "Must be because it's girl-cum."

"Omigosh… you're just so- like, eating my cum, my toes, jerking me off, and-" A little moisture was collecting in her eyes, so I tried to head that off by being funny.

"Hey, let's not get carried away. I didn't _eat_ your toes, they're still right where you left them." Well, I said _tried._ But she did giggle, although it was a giggle-sniffle, so I cupped her cheek. "Anyway… yeah, I hope you can tell by now that I'm kinda into you. Annoying little bundle of happy that you are, and I don't even know why you like me… but I guess there's no point in questioning that anymore."

Instead of answering with words right away, she just attack-hugged me and started smothering me with kisses. There wouldn't really have been any point in going "EW, YOU HAVE JIZZ-BREATH" since we both did by then, so I just contented myself with laughing and embracing her back, enjoying how close we could be.

"Love you," she finally whispered when she pulled back, eyes glittering.

"Ditto, kiddo. And thanks for the slug-trail on my hip there."

"What? Oh no, ew, I forgot!" Rolling away, we both looked at the little bit of essence that had been left behind there. "Um, sometimes afterward, a little bit keeps leaking out for a few minutes…"

"No worries, just clean it up. With a tissue!" I amended when her head started going for it. "Y-you don't have to clean it off with your tongue every time!"

Blushing, she went for the box of tissues on my bedside table and dabbed it away, then got the little bit on her tip before she tossed it. "Sorry about that."

"Happens, eh? And it's not like I minded. Just didn't want to have to change my sheets if we got any on there, that's all." Then we settled in against each other, still nude. Her knees trapped one of mine between them, and I smiled as I pet up and down her ribcage. "Now… we probably better get ready for work or some shit."

"Or take another day off?" she asked in a small voice, smiling. When I shook my head, she sighed resignedly. "Yeah. Two days in a row would be pretty bad."

Kissing her earlobe, I whispered, "Weekend's coming up. Then we can hang out as much as you want."

"Really?!"

"Yeah. We'll grab a couple movies from work, make it a thing."

"Can I eat you out again?" When I choked, she gently patted me on the back until I was breathing normally. Then hissed, "Should I not say stuff like that?"

"N-nah, you're fine! Totally chill. And, um… I wouldn't exactly mind that. Or eating you out."

Rolling her eyes, she snuggled closer. "You don't have to keep doing that. Pretending like I have a vagina when I don't yet."

Though the "yet" threatened to throw me off track, since that was definitely a conversation we'd have to revisit once she had her degree, I made myself focus on teasing her. "Actually, I wasn't pretending that this time."

"What? But you said you'd eat me out. And I don't have…"

When her eyes went round, mouth hanging slightly open as her entire face turned red, I reached down to gently squeeze her butt just to drive home that she wasn't mistaken. "I'm mostly kidding… except that if I was ever going to try that with anybody, it'd be you. Just… not sure about it, that's all."

"I haven't done much back there," she whispered nervously, though she was smiling. "You putting a finger down there just now was like, whoa!"

"Imagine if I had a dick, too. And I put it in your sweet little ass." She was still red, eyes wide and staring off into the distance as she actually imagined it. "Mmmm, yeah…"

Her hands came up to press into her face as she let out a " _KYAAAA!"_ of embarrassed excitement. Typical Knives. What I wasn't expecting was for her to say through the hands, "You did mention getting a strap-on before… and I didn't say 'no', I guess…"

"That's true," I said as I kissed the backs of those hands. Her legs flailed and I grinned from ear to ear. But she had to be told I was serious and not just teasing. "My girlfriend deserves to get fucked if she wants to. And I'm willing to go as fast or as slow as she wants. Not just with fucking, but with doing anything."

"God, I love you so much! I love you, Kim!"

"Yeah, yeah, love you, t-" That was as far as I got before my lips were otherwise occupied. Fine by me; she could do whatever she wanted and I would thank her for it. Dumb little ninja.

~ Bonus Level 2 ~  
[-2 PLOT]  
[+2 KINKY]

"I mean," she gasped almost two full minutes of making out later, "still no idea if I'm gonna like that, but… we could try? Just for fun. I'm still a little curious about how it feels, just end up wimping out."

I had still been a little dazed from the long lip-lock, but then I grinned. "Wanna find out?"

"Now? Um… no." And the specific way she grinned and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear told me she was sure of it this time, even if the idea still flustered her. "Like yeah, I'm definitely… interested, just in finding out if I like it, but I'm feeling pretty good with where we are. Wow, I feel… _good._ So good, Kim."

"Glad to hear it," I told her with a lot more sincerity in my voice than I was used to using. Knives was changing that a day at a time.

"Although…" Her hands caressed the globes of my butt.

"What? Oh. No thanks, I never had any interest in anyone plundering my booty."

"You sure? I mean, you're all about me trying it…"

I laughed softly. "Well, bo- I mean, _people with dicks_ have something back there. The prostate, right? I'm sadly prostate-deprived, so I really don't see myself getting a lot out of it. That's all. My G-spot is up front."

"Ohhhh," she breathed in a long dazed noise. One eyelid had twitched when I almost said "boys", but I think because I hadn't been calling _her_ one directly, she wasn't that affected. "Well yeah, I know about that. From health class. But I think there's a bunch of nerve endings in the butthole, too — like the actual butthole, not the spot on the inside."

"Trust me, you really don't want to be poking around back there, anyway. A real deathtrap." I was still laughing, but now I was also thinking about it. This was probably the first time I'd ever pointed my mind at the subject and thought anything other than the words "exit only" in big flashing red letters. Fucking nasty. But I also never really cared when it came to other people talking about it or whatever. To each their own.

Meanwhile, Knives was still kneading my cheeks. Had she been doing that the whole time? "I wouldn't mind, really. Showers, right?"

"Showers," I sighed, having to admit that point. "Best shape it'll be in right now."

"Right! Just like, y'know… if you feel something coming, warn me? I guess?"

"Yeah," I snorted as she sat back and away from my face. Then began to shift my legs. "Wait. What are- Knives! Are you really…? I didn't mean _now!"_

Her smile faltered but didn't quite fade. "Well, yeah. Might as well while you're already clean, right? Just, um…" But then she put the legs down. "Okay, sorry, I um, I should have asked. That wasn't cool."

"Well… I guess somebody could interpret me admitting it's clean right now as encouraging you. But, uh…" My stomach was doing backflips again. "Come on. You'd really want to prod my pucker?"

"Hey, I've never tried doing it for somebody else, either. Barely did on myself. How should I know if I like it or not?"

My finger came up to point at her accusingly. "You… little liar. Acting like you weren't into any of this when really you just want to experiment on me." She bit her lip and looked cute, and after a moment I rolled my eyes and lowered my finger. "Fine. But the minute I don't like something-"

"Oh, yeah, totally! Just kick me or whatever."

"Okay." As she raised my legs up again, I snorted. "Maybe you _want_ me to kick you. Kinky girl."

To that, she pouted again. "But you can be so gentle with these…" And she kissed one of the feet held so firmly in place by her hands around my ankles, making me shiver. By now, I was beginning to suspect I was right — that not _every_ pout really meant she was sad. What an actress. "You proved it by teasing my dick with one."

"What is it with you and feet, anyway?" Again, she sought out the toe with the freckle for a kiss. Her favourite. And again, it made my face pulse hotter when she paid attention to it like that, even more when she took it between her sweet lips. "Knives…"

"Mmhhh," she moaned around it exaggeratedly, and I twitched all over. The best way to describe that sensation is that it felt both good and bad. Awkward, but not unpleasant; something a girl could get used to. If that was how Knives felt when I did it, maybe I could bite the bullet and add a kiss or two to my next foot massage. Pretty minimal sacrifice.

"Alright, alright," I burst out once her tongue was swirling around the toe with a little too much gusto. I definitely didn't want her to keep messing with my feet. Enough of that for one day. "Just… get on with it. Wish I had some lube."

"Lube?" she asked as she kissed my thigh. I tried not to think too much about how close she was to my ass. To all of everything down there, again, so soon after she just went down on me.

"Yeah, um… for the ass. It doesn't self-lubricate like the my snatch does."

Her smile was both soothing and worrying. "Well, I wasn't really gonna go all-in; just tease you a little. So we probably don't need that. But if you wanna wait until we get some…"

"Meh," I sighed, trying to pretend I was disinterested and totally calm. And failing; we both could tell I was nervous. But I decided not to say anything else and just let her have at it.

Mistake.

See, now I think I should have protested a little more strongly, or asked her to go slower. Because she started out kissing it. _Started out_ that way, not graduated from a finger to her mouth. My breath caught, and I didn't know what to say. I was torn between feeling grossed out that she would do that, curious about what it was like, and feeling so loved because this incredible girl would actually stoop to putting her mouth on this dirtiest part of some random redhead. So that was about all I could do.

And I was crying out by the time her hands slid up my thighs, forcing my legs back. She attempted that for a minute, trying to figure out logistics, then lowered them again and said, "Can you, um, roll over?"

"Ugh… fine…" But as I was rolling over, I said, "This is weird, you know. Not judging, since obviously I'm just as weird for letting it happen, but like… what are we doing?"

"Playing," she breathed on one of my cheeks, prompting another shiver. "Awww, it's so cute, though!"

My entire face turned cherry red. For some reason, before that I had just been a little nervous — and completely shocked that this was happening at all. Now, she was really about to start pleasuring me in about the last place I thought anyone would. And she already liked it, without even really getting started.

Seeming to sense that I was flattered, even if it was in with all the other emotions, she kept going, her finger now tracing around it. Not quite touching yet. "Seriously… it's like a little star… I dunno, it's cute."

"Shut up, it can't be cute. It's a…" Swallowing, I tried to resist shivering from her teasing fingernail. "Ooh…" Failed step one.

"What if I put my dick in it? Like… would you be interested in finding out how that goes? You were talking about doing that to me earlier…"

"Oh my GOD. You haven't even put it where I want it yet!" I protested, my cheeks somehow getting even redder than my hair. Her breath caught, and I realised I might have gone a little too far. "I m-mean, when you're ready for that. Of course. Y'know…"

"No, I get it," she giggled as she kissed one of my cheeks. The lower ones, not the red ones. "Don't worry. I, um, I have thought about that, too… and I'd probably want to. When I feel more ready."

"Exactly. Which could be whenever, not right nahhhWHOA that's weird!"

For a minute or so, I simply let her get on with pushing her fingertip against the tightly-clenching hole. Which was clenched intentionally; I didn't want anything to go inside. Poking around the rim was about as much as I could handle, and only because Knives was so curious and I was unable to resist her. She made another comment about how cute it was, and I couldn't reply, even just to tell her that it was ridiculous.

Finally, she said, "Hmm, not much I can do without that lube, I guess. You were right."

"It's okay," I sighed as I took a deep breath, then let it out before speaking again. "We tried."

"We did. Most things, anyway."

That was the only warning I had before feeling a tongue squirming against the skin. I went totally speechless, not sure what to think at first. After a few seconds of putting up with that, and the odd sensations shooting through my stomach and down into my legs, I finally groaned, "Ohhh, that is just _so_ wrong…"

"Hmm," was all she said when she had put the finger back against the now-moistened opening.

"Hmm, what? 'Hmm, we're obviously freaks now'?"

"Nah, just… okay, I don't wanna be super gross about this, so I won't give you a detailed um, description of what that was like. But it wasn't as bad as you probably think it would be."

The corner of my mouth twitched up, even as my abdomen was convulsing from the continued teasing. "Guess they sell flavoured lubes for a reason."

"I wouldn't need it. Not for this; like I said, it's not that bad." After a second to think, she added, "As long as you're clean. Um… no offense, but if you asked me to do this any other time…"

"I wouldn't even ask you to do it when I'm clean," I assured her. "So yeah, I get not wanting to do it otherwise. We're totally in sync with this one."

She hummed in a satisfied manner, then kissed it again, slowly pushing her tongue into the center. Trying to open me up. I didn't want that; I didn't want to fart in her face or something terrible! And it started to feel… better. Don't get me wrong, it never felt _awful_ , but it was uncomfortable and the idea was nasty to me. But after getting used to it, I could relax into the sensation, and it was basically like a bidet. Or using a wet-wipe. Better than either of those, but not much different.

Finally, she paused, and I asked, "Whuh… what do _you_ think? You into tossing my salad?"

"Yeah. I could do it again. Going down on your vag was better, though." She sounded a little turned on again, and I suspected it was just because what we were doing was so… unusual. I was slightly wet, too, and I hated that because it was from _this!_ But oh well.

"Sounded like you liked it. In fact… something tells me…" It took a little effort and stretching back, but given the way we were positioned, I managed to find her hips with my toes. From there, I could drag them inward to grasp at what I thought I might find. "Yep."

"H-hey," she half-laughed, half-gasped as she felt them pressing into either side of her warm erection. It was still a little sticky at the head, but otherwise smooth and soft. "What are you doing?"

"Checking, that's all," I assured her with a laugh of my own. "Unless you want me to keep going…?'

"N-nah." She sounded a little conflicted, but mostly sure of herself. "I don't need a footjob; I told you, I usually only go once in a day."

"What's a footj… nevermind, I figured it out. No explanation necessary." Her lips pushed into my ass again, and I sighed. Then I felt her thrust between my feet and smirked into the sheets. "Interesting."

There was a little shame in her voice when she admitted, "I… didn't mean to, but it's already there, and you… actually have pretty soft feet? Is that weird?"

"It's weird that I have soft feet," I laughed breathlessly. Her talking this much with her mouth so close to my sensitive parts, both the ass and the vag she had already given the royal treatment, was making me that much wetter. "Not for you to notice, I guess." And that was me being nice, for all those people who think I can't pull it off. Both things were a little weird, but nothing criminal. No big deal.

The problem was, it was difficult to maintain those actions and positions. In order to keep my feet there, I had to kind of push my legs backward a bit instead of keeping them up and under me, which meant I was constantly tensing against her exploring tongue. Which… I think we both liked. The tongue up my ass part, not the other thing, which was all her. Did I really want this? Maybe. Not anything more than that at the moment, and maybe not that ever again, but in the moment…

"Do you want me to move back down?" she asked, hearing me panting and moaning. "You know… eat you out again? The normal way."

"N-nah," I told her. "Can't switch now. I'd probably get… some kind of disease." Then her thumb found my clit and I shrieked, "SHIT!"

"Good? Bad?"

"Good! Soooo gooood!" I confessed as she ground it against me, completely her bitch in that moment. Honestly? I know what I said, and I stand by it with my rational mind. But if she had suddenly shoved a finger in there, as long as it was all lubed up and ready to go in with minimal pain… yeah. I'd have been all about it without having any power to protest. Couldn't even believe it, and NegaKim's sensibilities were horribly offended, but it was true.

Also, Knives seemed to know her body pretty well. Though I felt her thrusting against my toes, heard her moan once or twice into me — _felt_ it — she wasn't nearly as frustrated and frantic as before I jerked her off. Really a one-and-done kinda girl, like most dick-owners. Her entire focus was on getting that tongue deeper and deeper, making that thumb do its best to get me there again.

Her best was good enough. A lot sooner than I expected, I was coming, and it was with her tongue all the way inside the last place I thought it would go. And God help me, Orgasm Part Two was every bit as hot as the first one. Nobody, not even Scott, could ever have gotten me to let them try this out for so long, and she made me shiver all over twice in one day with something I wasn't even comfortable doing yet. Knives is a miracle worker.

No, she never splooged. Her dick was done with that for the morning, and to be honest, I probably would have teased her a lot more if she finished that way, so it was for the best. Deciding I was through with my ass being explored now that I came, I rolled onto my back and wrapped my calves and ankles around her hips instead. Just caressing her very gently with my legs.

And Knives smiled down at me. Even though I had glanced at her dick, and thought about teasing her a little more, I mostly just held her gaze. That sweet face, and its dark, glittering eyes that always looked full of laughter or mischief, was well worth my attention.

"I'd kiss you," she finally told me through her huge grin, "but I don't think you'd want me to right now."

"Not really. My own butt is on the list of things I never want to experience." When she curled around my side, I curled back, nestling in again. "Yours, I'd give one try. _One._ But yeah, go brush your teeth in a minute."

"I will," she giggled.

Both of us were quiet for a bit. Basking in afterglow, appreciating how our warm bodies fit together. My fingers played over the silver chain around her neck, and she let out one of the happiest sighs I'd ever heard. Then I groaned, "Work. We still have to go to fucking work!"

"Shhh," she whispered, petting up and down my stomach. "We have a little longer."

"Yeah. Alright, but not too much longer; I don't want you to get fired."

"What about you?"

"Meh. My job sucks, anyway. But you're probably going to be putting yours on a transcript or an application or some shit."

Knives moved to kiss me, but remembered at the last second and instead just nuzzled my neck. "You're so sweet, Kim. Even sweeter now than before we broke the Gorgon Maiden, but like… you were before that, too. Just less afraid of showing it now."

"More like you're worth risking that I'll make an idiot of myself," I said as I kissed her nose. Then I sat up, groaning on my way before I reached back to help her do the same. "Come here, you jerk. Use some damn mouthwash so I can kiss you again. I'd really like to be able to kiss you right now."

" _Sweeeeeet,"_ she drawled out, and I shoved her face away.

"Idiot."

"Love you!"

"Ugh."

Let me tell you something. The picture of true happiness. It's coming out of your room, having found some jeans and a blouse to put on, to see a naked ninja girl brushing her teeth in front of your bathroom mirror, humming just a little bit as she did so. Then smiling over at you with minty suds running down her chin. Maybe most people wouldn't think it was all that important, but God… I wanted to savour that memory. Needed to.

So I took a pic with my phone. Knives squeaked, and yelled at me to delete it as she slammed the bathroom door, but after she was through in there and dressed for work I patiently explained why I wanted it. And, as I could have expected, she told me I could keep it — while kissing me for being 'sweet' again. Though she did make me promise not to make it my wallpaper.

And so, our heroes went off to work, knowing that all they had to do was suffer through a few hours apart before they could hang out around the ol' Nintendo again. Sure, I expected that a lot of other stuff would be coming our way: Knives going back to college, long distance relationship annoyance. Meeting each other's families. Potential surgeries. The Clash At Demonhead tryouts. Gideon's long lost cousin, with the ability to suck in enemies to temporarily gain their powers, trying to take over North America. Plus, actually 'going all the way' once Knives was ready, if she ever was. Nothing's ever _really_ tied up in a neat bow.

But none of that was happening today. The future could wait until after a few boards of Mario Party.

 _GAME OVER_  
 _[Achievement Unlocked: Happy Ending ;) ]_


End file.
